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THE CONVERSION OF THE EOMAN EMPIRE. 



THE 



BOYLE LECTUEES 



FOR THE YEAR 1864 



DELIVERED AT THE CHAPEL ROYAL, WHITEHALL. 



BY 



CHARLES MEEIVALE, B.D. 

RECTOR OF LATTFORD: 
CHAPLAIN TO THE SPEAKER OF THH HOUSE OF COMMOKS. 



LONDON: 
LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGMAN, ROBERTS, & GREEN. 

1864. 



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t)"^ A^ 



CONTENTS. 



LECTURE I. (Page 1.) 
CHRISTIAN BELIEF CONTRASTED WITH HEATHEN UNBELIEF. 

Acts xvii. 32, 

And ichen they lieard of the resurrection of the dead, soine mocked . 
and otliers said, We will hear thee again of this matter. 



LECTURE IL (Page 21.) 

HEATHEN BELIEF DIRECTED TOWARDS A TEMPORAL PROVIDENCE. 

Acts xvii. 22. 

Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, Ye men of 
Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too su2)erstitious. 



LECTURE in. (Page 40.) 

EXPANSION OF HEATHEN BELIEF BY THE TEACHING OF THE 
* PHILOSOPHERS. 

Acts xvii. 26. 

God hath made of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on all 
the face of the earth. 



VI CONTENTS. 

LECTUEE IV. (Page 64.) 

EXPANSION OF HEATHEN BELIEF BY THE IDEAS OF EOMAN 
JURISPRUDENCE. 

GrALATIANS III, 24. 

The laiv was our scJwohnaster to hring us unto Christ. 



LECTURE V. (Page 85.) 

THE HEATHEN AWAKENED TO A SENSE OF HIS SPIRITUAL DANGER. 

1 John iv. 21. 

And this commandment have we from Him, That he ivho loveth God 

love his brother also. 



LECTURE VI. (Page 106.) 

EFFORTS OF THE HEATHEN TO AVERT SPIRITUAL RUIN. 

St. Mark ix. 24. 

And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with 

tears, Lord, I believe ; help Thou mine unbelief 

LECTURE VII. (Page 129.) 

THE DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY RESPOND TO THE QUESTIONS 
OF THE HEATHENS. 

St. Matthew XXVIII. 19. 
The name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. 



LECTURE VIII. (Page 150.) 



THE GODLY EXAMPLE OF THE CHRISTIANS COMPLETES THE 
CONVERSION OF THE EMPIRE. 

Acts xvii. 6. 
These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also, 



PREFACE, 



:>>^c 



The conversion of the Eoman Empire to Christianity 
is a very comprehensive subject of inquiry. It is a 
subject not for a dissertation but for a history, for it 
involves a progressive change extending over tln^ee or 
more centuries, and is marked by a series not only of 
moral and intellectual, but of political revolutions. It 
embraces a multitude of events, and presents to us a 
long gallery of individual characters. It points back- 
ward to the origin and progress of thought and 
feeling on rehgious questions ; and forward almost to 
the farthest expansion that they have hitherto attamed. 
It is in itself the history of rehgion brought into one 
focus, for there is httle probably in the later course of 
human speculation on the most interesting of aU 
questions, of which the germ and often the full de- 
velopment may not be traced in the controversies of 
primitive Christianity with Paganism. In undertaking 
to give a sketch of this subject within the hmits of 
eight lectures delivered fi-om a pulpit to a mixed and 



Vlll PEEFACE. 

fluctuating congregation, I have not supposed that I 
could do more than indicate a few of its most saHent 
points, and suggest topics of reflection and possibly of 
inquiry that might lead some of my hearers or readers 
to a further and more fruitful consideration of it. 
With this view, in printing these Lectures according 
to the terms of the foundation on which they were 
delivered, I have appended to them some explanatory 
and illustrative notes which seemed to be required for 
the better understanding of my remarks ; but still the 
volume which I lay before the reader does not pretend 
to be a formal disquisition on the subject — still less, I 
need hardly say, to be a history of the great trans- 
formation of opinion of which it treats. 

It may be well to observe, however, that the con- 
version of the Emph-e seems, under God's providence, 
to have been affected principally in four ways : — 

1. By the force of the external evidence to the 
truth of Christianity, that is, by the apparent fulfilment 
of recorded prophecy, and by the historical testimony 
to the miracles by which it claims on its first pro- 
mulgation to have been accompanied. 

The age indeed was uncritical, and httle competent 
to weigh such external testimony with the accuracy 



PREFACE. IX 

which is now demanded. There was great proneness 
to accept the claim of miracles ; but at the same time, 
and in consequence of this very proneness, very Httle 
weight was attached to it as an argument of Divine 
power. Greater stress was laid on the fulfilment of 
prophecy, but in this respect also the age was liable to 
be grossly imposed upon ; and it must be allowed that 
the preaching of Christianity owes some portion, how- 
ever trifling, of its success to the false pretensions of 
the so-called SibyUine Oracles, which form no part of 
its genuine credentials. 

On these accounts, and because a discussion on this 
branch of the subject would have been ill suited to 
discourses from the pulpit, I have refrained from 
dweUing upon the effect of the external evidence of 
Christianity in the conversion of the Empire. 

2. By internal evidence, from the sense of spiritual 
destitution, the consciousness of sin, the acknowledged 
need of a Sanctifier and a Eedeemer. 

This in the primitive, as in later ages, was undoubtedly 
the most effectual testimony to the Truth in Christ Jesus. 
It appeals to all men without distinction of class and 
nation. But it addresses itself more especially to men 
of intelhgence and moral sensibility. It is the highest 



X PREFACE. 

and the worthiest testimony, the most distinctive of the 
true religion, the most foreign to the character of the 
false religions of the heathen, yet bearing a mysterious 
affinity to some of the highest and worthiest aspirations 
of the heathen philosophy. It addresses itself with 
equal power to mankind in all ages, and estabhshes 
most vividly, by its applicability to ourselves, the moral 
connection which subsists between the men of the first 
century and the men of the nineteenth. 

This is the branch of Christian evidences on which I 
have most emphatically insisted ; for by this, I believe, 
the most refined and intelHgent of the heathen were 
actually converted, and there is none to the action of 
which we can point so reasonably and justly as this. 

And with this may be combined the results which 
flowed from the recognised want of a system of positive 
behef. The Greeks and Eomans had generally dis- 
carded the dogmas of their old mythology. They had 
rejected tradition, and pretended to shake off authority 
in matters of faith. Swayed for a time each by his 
own conscience or sensibihty only, they had yielded 
eventually, more or less implicitly, to the guidance of 
the Sophists, the perplexed and dubious inheritors of 
the science of the great masters of antiquity ; and by a 
slow but inevitable decline, they had fallen once more 



PREFACE. XI 

under tlie dominion of newer and stranger formulas. 
The traditions of the East, of Syria, Persia, and Egypt, 
the worship of Belus and Mitliras, of Isis and Serapis, 
had popularly replaced the traditions and the worship of 
Jupiter and Juno, of Hercules and Quirinus. Christianity, 
it should be clearly miderstood, did not succeed at once 
to the vacant inheritance of Olympus. Another re- 
hgion had interposed : an exotic family of superstitions 
had demanded and received, for at least two centuries, 
the devotion of the pious, and been in its tm^n rejected 
as a mockery and a delusion. Christianity, in fact, 
was not simply the resource of a dissatisfied philosophy ; 
it was not accepted as the only refuge from the blank 
negation of a creed. It was the tried and approved of 
several claimants to the sovereignty of the religious 
instinct among men — tried by reason and argument, 
and approved from its own manifest adaptation to hu- 
man requirements. The world, I conceive, had long 
resolved, in spite of the philosophers, that a positive 
creed was necessary to its moral being ; it had endea- 
voured in vain to satisfy itself with systems of its own 
invention ; it \delded at last, under a divine impulse, to 
that which God Himself had revealed and recom- 
mended to it. 

3. There is, however, a third kind of testimony, the 
character of which I would not l3e supposed to dis- 



Xll PEEFACE. 

parage ; a testimony which worked powerfully upon 
large numbers among the heathen, among persons per- 
haps of less critical acumen, but eminently susceptible 
of impressions from the contemplation of goodness and 
holiness — the testimony to the truth of Christianity 
from the lives and deaths of the primitive behevers, 
from the practical effect of Christian teaching upon 
those who embraced it in faith. The godly examples 
of the Christians throughout the trials of life, and 
especially in the crowning trial of martyrdom, were, as 
we may be assured from history, productive of thou- 
sands, nay of millions, of conversions. On this subject 
I have been naturally led to touch, and would willingly 
have expatiated, but my limits and the scope of my 
Lectures did not allow of my dwelling upon it. 

4. But further, among the multitude there was pro- 
bably, after all, no argument so effectual, no testimony 
to the divine authority of the Gospel so convincing, as 
that from the temporal success with which Christianity 
was eventually crowned. The decline of the Empire, 
the discredit and overthrow of Paganism, the fall of 
Eome itself, did actually turn the mass of mankind, as 
with a sweeping revolution, to the rising sun of revealed 
Truth in Christ Jesus. Men of earnest thought and 
men of ardent feeling had already been converted by 
the evidence before adduced ; but the great inert mass 



PEEFACE. XlU 

of the thoughtless, the gross-minded, and the carnal, 
upon whom no legitimate arguments could make any 
impression, were startled, arrested, and convinced by 
the last overruling argument of success. 

This success, however, was not assured till the time 
of Constantine, and up to the fourth century, at least, 
the multitude still continued to chng to the false gods 
whose overthrow was not yet manifestly apparent. 
The conversion of the more intelhgent among the 
heathen, which encouraged the coup d'etat of the first 
Christian Emperor, had been, I conceive, actually 
effected before the proved inefficacy of the heathen re- 
ligions had caused them to be abandoned by the herd 
of timeservers. The Empire, as a political machine, 
was now transferred to the rule of Christ : its laws and 
institutions were placed upon a Christian foundation : 
the conversion of the Empire was substantially com- 
pleted, whatever doubt or repugnance might long linger 
among some classes of its subjects. Accordingly, while 
I have pointed out the effect of the growing distrust 
of their own systems among the heathens, I have not 
thought it necessary to dwell upon a cause of con- 
version which, however ultimately effectual, had not 
yet begun to operate very powerfully within the hmits 
of time to which these sketches are confined. Had my 
treatment of my thesis extended far into the fourth 



XIV PREFACE. 

century, it would have been important to estimate the 
effect of the Imperial example, which in the Eoman 
Empire, no doubt, as elsewhere, must have determined 
in innumerable instances the conversion or conformity 
of the people. To the Eomans, as long as they 
retained a spark of ancient sentiment, the Emperor, in 
his capacity of Chief Pontiff — a title with which Con- 
stantine and Yalentinian dared not dispense — seemed 
still the appointed minister of the national religion, 
still the intercessor for divine favour, the channel of 
covenanted mercies to the State, whatever form of 
ministration he might employ, to whatever l^ame he 
might address himself in behalf of the Empire. He 
was still on a large scale, and in the pubHc behoof, 
what the Eomans had been wont to consider the head 
of each private family to be in his domestic sphere. 
Cato the Censor directed the paterfamilias to offer 
prayers and sacrifices to Jupiter, Mars, and Janus, 
that they might be propitious to ' himself, to his 
house, to his whole family;' and throughout the bounds 
of the Eoman's farm, there was no baihff, hind^ or 
bondman who would have ventured probably to offer 
a prayer or a sacrifice on his own account, still less to 
question the authority of his master to offer for himself 
and for them all whatever prayers, and whatever 
sacrifices, and address himself to whatever deity he 



PEEFACE. XV 

might choose.^ Nevertheless, the struggle of the Pa- 
gan conscience against the authority of the Emperor 
in rehgious matters is a marked feature in the his- 
tory of the fourth century ; and the effect of the Im- 
perial example in the final conversion of the Em- 
pire was subject undoubtedly to important modifica- 
tions. M. Beugnot's ' History . of the Destruction of 
Paganism in the West,' published about tliirty years 
ago, is still, I believe, the best and completest work 
we possess upon the later phases of the great trans- 
formation of religion ; but the subject admits of pro- 
founder examination and a more extended survey. 

^ Cato's injunction to the Villicns, De Re rust. c. 143, may be 
taken as an epitome of the ecclesiastical theory of the Romans: 
Scito dominum pro tota familia rem divinam facere. 



LECTURE L 



>>^c 



CHRISTIAN BELIEF CONTRASTED WITH HEATHEN UNBELIEF. 



Acts xyii. 32. 

And ivhen they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some 
mocked : and others said, We will hear thee again of this 
matter. 

To men of education, to men of academic training 
and accomplishments, to all wlio pretend to ground 
their religious faith on reasoning and argument, no 
study can be more interesting than that of the process 
by which Christianity has actually won its way in 
the minds of the intelligent and accomphshed, the 
reasoners and philosophers, of ancient and modern 
times. The records of Scripture disclose to us a 
glimpse, and no more than a glimpse, of the form 
which the discussion assumed between the preachers 
of the gospel and the possessors of human wisdom, 
in the centre and reputed stronghold of ancient 
science. The account of St. Paul's address to the phi- 
losophers of Athens, which occupies but a portion 

B 



2 LECTURE I. 

of a single chapter of the sacred history, suggests, 
as it seems to me, more directly the fundamental 
question between God's revelation and human specula- 
tion than any of the ample apologies, or explanatory 
defences of Christianity, set forth by the fathers of our 
faith in the centuries next ensuing. The apologists, no 
doubt, knew what they were aiming at ; they had their 
own special object, which they placed clearly before 
them ; they met the objections or refuted the fallacies 
which they knew by their own experience to be the 
most critical and the most harassing of their own times. 
But neither their arguments in defence of Christ's reve- 
lation, nor their arguments against the pretensions of 
heathen superstition, are generally such as to engage 
the interest of our day ; their value is historical rather 
than critical ; we neither go to them to confirm our 
own faith, nor of course do we require their help to 
perceive what is false, absurd, impossible in the creeds 
of heathen antiquity. Tertullian and Justin, who lived 
in the ages of persecution, dwell with most force and 
fervour on the sanctity of the Christians' lives in attesta- 
tion of the truth of the gospel message. Augustine 
and Lactantius, witnesses of the triumph of the new 
religion, expose to scorn the vain pretences of the 
priests of Jupiter and Apollo : but the preaching of 
St. Paul, in the short fragment before us, goes in one 
word to the root of the matter, and sets before us the 
question of questions, which all generations must ask 
and do ask of themselves — in private, in their own 
hearts, if not in pubhc debate and controversy — namely, 
whether God has given us the assurance of His Being, 



THE PHILOSOPHERS AT ATHENS. 3 

of His Providence, and of His Eighteousness, by the sure 
and certain promise of a Future Existence ? For sucli 
is the way in which the apostle states the question of 
the resurrection. 

' Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we 
ought not to think that the Godhead is hke unto gold, 
or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device. 

' And the times of this ignorance God winked at ; 
but now commandeth all men every where to repent : 

' Because He hath appointed a day, in the which He 
will judge the world in righteousness by that man 
whom He hath ordained; whereof He hath given as- 
surance unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from 
the dead.'^ 

The moral government of God, the judgment of 
God, and the need of repentance to meet that judg- 
ment, are all assured to us by the fact of Christ's Ee- 
surrection, which is the type and pledge of our resur- 
rection also. 

How, then, did the philosophers of Athens meet the 
arguments of St. Paul, of which no doubt a mere 
outline has been preserved to us, but which were 
evidently based upon the fact, affirmed and demon- 
strated, of our Lord's o^^^l resurrection ? ' When 
they heard of the resurrection of the dead,' says 
the same brief record, ' some mocked, and others said, 
We will hear thee again of this matter.' 

I need not say how truly this concise statement 
represents the way in which the truths of religion are 

1 Actsxvii. 29-31. 

B '2 



4 LECTURE 1. 

very commonly received by the adepts in human 
wisdom in all ages : some who are possessed by a 
prejudice, whose minds are made up, who have been 
long persuaded that there is no new truth to be 
discovered, make a mock, courteously perhaps and 
blandly, of the doctrine propounded to them ; others, 
touched at heart, distrusting themselves, perplexed and 
dubious, put off the day of conviction, and silence their 
uneasy doubts by promising to enquire further at some 
future time. But the words of the narrative are more 
remarkable, as foreshadowing the way in which the 
revelation of Christianity, the keystone of which is the 
doctrine of a future state, would be received generally 
in the heathen world, and more particularly by the 
philosophers and thinkers among the heathen ; how 
many, to the last, would make a mock of it ; how, in 
the midst of their own spiritual struggles and distresses, 
in all the agony of their search for spiritual consolation, 
they would still make pretence of derision or defiance 
at the preaching of the Christian Eesurrection. Never- 
theless others there were, many there were, at last a 
majority there was, who would hear again of the 
matter. The preachers of the gospel and of immor- 
tality, of God's justice and the final retribution, would 
never fail of listeners till the day should come when 
this great doctrine should attain its triumph, when 
upon this stone, upon the confession of this fundamental 
truth, the Church of Christ would be estabhshed in 
the Eoman Empire, and the Truth as it is in Christ 
Jesus become the moral law of civilized men through- 
out the ' inhabited world ' of the Greek or Eoman. 



OBJECT AXD METHOD OF THE LECTURES. 5 

We may take the statement of tlie text, then, as a 
type of the struggle between Paganism and Chris- 
tianity, and of that transformation of religious opinion, 
by which the hopes and fears and spiritual aspira- 
tions of the Eoman world, at the time of our Lord's 
appearance in the flesh, became absorbed in the faith 
of Christ — modified, purified, exalted, expanded. In 
the Lectures which are to follow I propose to sketch, 
as far as opportunity allows, the progress of this 
transformation, the most signal of all religious revo- 
lutions. The object of the foundation of tlie Boyle 
Lecture is to assert the truth of Christianity againet 
mibclievers, and it may have been usual to give 
these discourses a controversial turn, to answer special 
objections against the facts of our rehgion, or urge 
direct arguments in its defence. If I take a some- 
what different course in settim^ forth a liistorical 
survey of the change of religious opinion among the 
ancients, I beheve I shall act not less in the spirit 
of my instructions. At the present day, at least, if I 
judge rightly the temper of my contemporaries, I am 
more likely to recommend the truth of Christianity 
by tracing the progress of conviction in the minds 
of men, than. by combating again the old objections, 
or seeking weapons with which to encounter the most 
recent, the offspring generally of the old, and bearing 
a strong resemblance to their parents. 

Many, I think, are agreed that, after aU, the most 
strikins^ evidence for the Divine orioin of oiu: faitli 
lies in the patent fact of its existence, of its growth 
and diffusion, its pruved superiority to all other forms 



6 LECTURE I. 

of spiritual thought, its proved adaptation to all the 
spiritual wants of man. Nothing can be more in- 
teresting, nothing can more conduce to a just notion of 
its claims on our belief, than a critical examination of 
the state of thought and opinion with which it had to 
deal at the outset, and the nature of the intellectual 
struggle which it carried on. It is with this con- 
viction that I propose to devote these Lectures to the 
consideration of that spiritual resurrection, that resur- 
rection of faith and genuine piety, which marks the 
intellectual history of the early centuries of our era ; 
to dash at least a few rapid sketches of the most 
salient features of the controversy between the wis- 
dom of this world and the Truth as it is in Christ 
Jesus. 

One indulgence your lecturer must crave. The line 
of enquiry thus marked out cannot be profitably fol- 
lowed in these discourses without the free use of the 
materials of secular history, without repeated reference 
to the names of men and of places of antiquity, without 
occasional allusions to worldly customs and modes of 
thought, without citation sometimes of secular books — 
in short, not except under the usual conditions of a 
critical investigation. I must be allowed to make these 
addresses, what they are in fact properly termed, 
Lectures, rather than Sermons. I must be pardoned if 
the exposition of the sacred text, or the topics of 
religious exhortation or instruction which form the 
usual staple of our discourses from the pulpit, give place 
for the most part, in my hands, to an examination of 



63. 7 

human opinions on matters of religious interest. For 
these subjects, too, I beheve, ' are good and profitable 
unto men.' ^ 

The transition from ancient to modern ideas of 
religion to which I call your attention extends over a 
period of three or four centuries : a long period, no 
doubt, in the history of civilized man ; a long period, 
marked with many changes of progress or decline in 
arts and inventions, in intellectual interests, in literature 
and science. In many respects the fourth century of 
Christianity was a different world from the first century 
before it, though the long interval, the Avide chasm, 
Avas spamied by the vast structure of the Eoman Em- 
pire, the bridge of ages, one pier of which rested on the 
consulship of Cassar, the other on the despotism of 
Constantine. But how wide was the moral space 
which divided the worshippers of Jupiter on the Capi- 
tol from the worshippers of Jesus Christ at the new 
Eome on the Bosphorus may be appreciated from the 
contrast of two historical scenes which I will now 
place before you. 

The Eoman senators were assembled on the fifth of 
December, in the year 63 before Christ, in the Temple of 
Concord, the pavement of which, at the foot of the Capi- 
toline hill, uncovered in modern times, serves us even 
now to realize vividly the scene and the circumstances 
presented. The diAdnity to whom the temple was dedi- 
cated marked in itself a peculiar phase of the course 

1 Titus iii. 8. 



8 LECTUEE I. . . 

of religious feeling among tlie Eomans ; for Concord 
- — a mere moral abstraction, a mere symbol of a com- 
pact effected at an earlier period between the political 
orders of the State — was not an old popular creation of 
Itahan sentiment, but eminently the invention of the 
magistrate, introduced by law into the national ritual. 
The Senate was itself the minister of the civil govern- 
ment, and on this occasion it met on the spot which thus 
eminently symbolized the civil religion of the Eoman 
State. ISTor less was the Senate the minister of the State- 
rehgion. It comprehended in its ranks the pontiffs, the 
augurs, and most of the great ecclesiastical officers of 
Eome. The place in which it held its meetings — v/her- 
ever the consul might appoint, whether a temple or a 
hall for civil affairs — must be consecrated by the obser- 
vation of the auspices. Never, then, were the civil and 
the religious character of the Senate more conspicuously 
represented than when it met in the Temple of Con- 
cord to deliberate on the punishment due to the greatest 
of crimes political and religious, the sacrilegious treason 
of Catiline and his followers. 

Among the senators convened on that memorable 
day were men of the highest political renown,— men who 
had maintained or men who had daringly assailed the 
traditions of government on which the fortunes and the 
fame of the commonwealth had for centuries rested ; 
— warriors and legislators, patriots and demagogues, 
leaders and partisans, orators and mere dumb but faith- 
ful voters ; all influenced by the strongest political feel- 
ings, most of them absorbed in the great struggles of 



CESAR'S DENIAL OF IMMORTALITY. 9 

the day, — enthusiasts, fanatics, — ready to stake their 
fortunes and their lives in assertion of their respective 
watchv^ords ; — all fuJl of reminiscences of the great 
men and the great deeds of old ; — not a few among 
them emulous of ancient fame, many setting glory and 
honour and duty high above every sordid or selfish 
consideration. Moreover, there were few or none of 
them who had not been trained in the philosophies of 
the day, and accustomed to look with intelhgent interest 
upon the problems of human nature, and consider the 
claims of the higher spiritual life, and recognise the 
workings of man's soul within him. 

It was on such an occasion, then, on such a spot, in 
such an assembly, that Ca?sar pronounced the words 
which have been doubtless faithfully reported to us 
by no mean contemporary authority — the words which 
have ever since been marked and held in remembrance 
as the manifesto of Eoman unbelief on the subject of 
future existence. 

' In pain and misery,' lie said, ' death is the release 
from all suffering, not suffering itself; death dissolves 
all the ills of mortality ; beyond it is no place either for 
pain or pleasure. Wherefore,' such was his argument, 
' keep these criminals alive, to suffer a fitting penalty ; 
after death there is no more punishment for sin, neither 
is there any reward for virtue.' Csesar himself, the chief 
pontiff, the highest functionary of the State-religion, the 
chosen interpreter of Divine things to the national con- 
science, declared peremptorily that there is no such 
thing as retribution beyond the grave, no future state 



10 LECTURE T. 

of consciousness, no immortality of the soul. To him 
replied the grave and virtuous Cato, the devoted ser- 
vant of his country, her laws and institutions ; the most 
regular observer of the traditions of his class and order ; 
the most religious man, I may say, at Eome, inasmuch 
as, of all the Eomans of his day, there was none who 
set before himself so high a rule of life or so strictly 
kept it ; a man whose aim it was to ' fulfil all righteous- 
ness ' in the sense in which righteousness would present 
itself to him— a man, I will add, with a nearer sense 
of a personal inspiration, of the indwelling of a divine 
spirit, than any heathen, except perhaps one or two 
only, with whom we are acquainted : — to him Cato 
replied, following and refuting, closely and gravely, 
all his political arguments, but passing by this re- 
markable expression with just one sentence of what 
looks like polished banter, just enough to indicate 
a humourist's sense (for Cato too was a humourist) 
of the curious incongruity of such a sentiment in 
such a mouth ; — but so lightly, so perfunctorily, as 
plainly to show how little there was in it to alarm 
the religious feeling of the audience, or to disgust 
the religious convictions of the speaker himself. 
But another great man took part also in the debate ; 
another orator remarked on the daring assertion of 
Csesar — daring, as with our habits of thought we can 
hardly refrain from calling it, though in the minds of 
the Eoman senators there was clearly no daring in it 
at all. Cicero, the most consummate adept in the doc- 
trines of the philosophical schools, the man who of all 



DEXIAL THEX GENERAL AMONG THE HEATHENS. 11 

his order could most exactly weigh the amount of 
approbation which the denial of immortality would 
then and there carry witli it — Cicero also, I say, refers 
to Ca3sar's assertion, not as caring to give his own 
assent or dissent upon the question, but leaving it per- 
fectly open to the learned or the pious, to the statesman 
and legislator, the pontiff and augur, to embrace or 
repudiate it as he pleases. We read of no further dis- 
cussion upon the point, upon this blank negation of all 
spiritual faith and hope ; the historian takes no personal 
notice of it ; no writer of antiquity alludes again to it ; 
it passes as a matter of general indifference. Such, in 
short, is the tone of sentiment among the highest intel- 
ligences of the day at Eome, in the century next before 
the coming of Christ, tliat the behef in a future state of 
retribution — the very foundation, as we regard it, of all 
true and rational religion — is allowed to be made an 
open question, to be treated as hardly worth question 
at all, in the gravest of assemblies, on the gravest of all 
public occasions.^ Such was their proud devotion to 
the false show of this world, to the glories of a world- 
wide dominion, the enjoyments of a voluptuous luxury, 
the flatteries of a complacent literature ; such their 
judicial blindness to the future, with all its aspirations 
and its terrors, its rewards and its punishments. 

But 'blessed be the Gcd and Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, which according to His abundant mercy hath 
begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrec- 
tion of Jesus Christ from the dead.' ^ 

1 See Note A. 2 1 Peter i. 3. 



12 LECTUKE I. 

For let the clouds of time settle upon the scene 
before us, and when the mist clears up let us find 
ourselves transported in imagination four centuries 
onwards, from Italy to Asia Minor, from Eome to the 
provincial city of Nicsea, from the Temple of Concord 
beneath the Capitol to a public hall of state over 
against the destined site of a second Eome on the 
Bosphorus. How changed is the scene which now 
meets our eyes ; how changed — yet in some marked 
circumstances how like to the old scene renewed? 
The place of meeting is no longer a temple, but a town- 
hall or a palace ; the government there enthroned is 
no longer a commonwealth, but an imperial autocracy; 
the men assembled before us in their robes of dignity 
and their ensigns of office, — the pallium for the toga, 
the crooked stafF for the ivory sceptre, — are no longer 
senators but bishops ; not fathers of patrician house- 
holds, and rulers of provinces and legions, but fathers 
of the Church, elders of a spiritual congregation, 
abounding in exhortation and teaching, interpreting a 
rule of faith and practice, holding fast an already 
ancient ecclesiastical tradition. The ideas of the 
time, indeed, are changed : the faith and usages of the 
people have undergone a marvellous transformation. 
The matter in debate in the assembly to which the 
gravest affair of state is now committed is not a 
question of political emergency, of foreign levy or 
domestic treason, but of the deepest spiritual signifi- 
cance ; the Council of Nice is met together to fix the 
creed of Christendom on a point of rehgious dogma, to 



THE COUNCIL OF XIC^A, A.D. 32o. 13 

close up an intellectual schism, and settle the faith of 
men on an everlasting; foundation. 

The chief who summons this council of Christian 
bishops is still the highest guardian of the national 
ritual, the head of the Church upon earth, but he 
comes not to prescribe his own views on points of 
religious faith, but to collect the suffrages of its recog- 
nised expounders, the depositaries of three centuries 
of interpretation and tradition, the chief pastors of the 
Christian congregations scattered over the face of the 
empire and even beyond it. 

For there too were assembled, not the denizens of 
one imperial city, descending from their mansions on 
tlie seven hills into the Eoman forum, but, in the words 
of the great historian of the crisis, ' the most eminent 
amono: God's ministers of all those Churches which filled 
all Europe, Libya, and Asia. And one sacred oratory,' 
he continues, 'enlarged as it were by God Himself, 
enclosed within its walls both Syrians and Cilicians, 
Phoenicians and Arabians, Palestinians and Egy|)tians 
also, Theba^ans and Libyans, and those that come forth 
of Mesopotamia. Tliere was present also at this synod 
a Persian bishop, neither was the Scythian absent from 
the quire. Moreover, there appeared here Thracians 
and Macedonians, Achaians and Epirotes, and such as 
dwelt far beyond these met nevertheless together.'^ 

And he goes on, as you might anticipate, to com- 
pare this varied assemblage to the multitude of many 

' Eiiscbius Pamphiln?, Life of Constantine, iii. 7. 



14 LECTURE I. 

nations that were gathered together on the day of 
Pentecost ; a meeting inferior indeed, as he hints, to 
this in interest, for that was composed for the most part 
of laymen and neophytes, but this of ministers and 
teachers only. 

The interest and importance, indeed, of this famous 
synod, it requires no theologian's rhetoric to magnify. 
Viewed as an event of human history only, dull indeed 
must be the imagination which does not see in the 
Council of Nic^a an incident of the deepest signifi- 
cance, the first launching of a vast spiritual engine on its 
career of conquest and dominion. However variously 
we may estimate the morals and intellect of the age, 
we cannot doubt that it was represented at this council 
by its best, its ablest, and its most intelhgent. What- 
ever judgment polemics may hold of the soundness of 
the ecclesiastical traditions then current, there can be 
no question but that at that council they were faith- 
fully expounded and fully developed. Whatever value 
some modern thinkers may set upon the abtruse dog- 
mas which came under discussion in it, it is allowed 
that in these dogmas lay the breath of all spiritual life 
at the period ; and especially the question of the Divine 
Son's relation to the Father, then elaborately defined, 
was a question of life and death for the scheme of 
theology then established, and ever since maintained 
in preeminence in the Church of Christ. Nor can 
we dispute that, if such transcendent mysteries can 
ever be profitably subjected to the test of critical dis- 
cussion, there were men there met together of every 



CHARACTEK OF THE BISHOPS ASSEMBI.ED. 15 

temper, of manifold habits of thought, of various men- 
tal associations, of various intellectual powers; some 
trustworthy as witnesses to traditional usage, some 
respectable for their personal experiences, some to be 
admired for their keenness and subtilty, some to be 
revered for their illustrious piety ; and that in such 
hands the subject in debate received as full and as 
worthy treatment as it has ever been capable of among 
men.^ 

The bishops, 318 in number, who met on this solemn 
occasion had aU been swept over by the last storm of 
imperial persecution, the agitation of which had liardly 
yet subsided. Known to each other hitherto by the 
record of their trials and endurance only, they now 
met for a moment upon earth, trusting to be united 
finally in heaven — the witnesses to the faith in Eome and 
Antioch, at Treves and at Carthage ; witnesses to the 
same faith, the same law, the same sacraments, the same 
Lord and Master of them all. The most illustrious 
were soon distinguished : some were betokened by their 
strange dress and habits, some by their well-known 
reputation for zeal or for learning, some by the wounds 
and scars of their noble confession. Paphnutius, a con- 
fessor from the Thebaid, who asserted the right of the 
clergy to the society of their wives, had been blinded 
and maimed in the leg ; Paul of Xeocassarea was 
crippled by torture in the hand. Ascetics from the 
Upper Egypt were clothed in the wild raiment of the 
Baptist ; they had wandered forth in sheepskins and 

^ Sccrates, Ilistonj of the Church, i. G. 



Iff LECTURE I. 

goatskins, they had dwelt in deserts and on mountains, 
in dens and caves of the earth. The childhke simplicity 
of the primitive ages was instanced in Spiridion, the 
village bishop of Cyprus — the prototype, it would seem, 
of the model prelate of a recent fiction, — who, when bri- 
gands robbed him of his sheep, rebuked them meekly 
for not having rather asked him for them. The learning 
of the clerical order, which could compare with that of 
the Pagan orators and sophists, was represented among 
others by Eustathius and the two Eusebiuses ; while 
for age and venerable bearing none were more remark- 
able than the Spanish prelate Hosius, and Alexander 
the patriarch of Alexandria. While again the neology 
of the period, and the leanings of secular learning 
towards notions which sprang from the lurking hea- 
thenism of the heart, found their artful expounder in 
the arch-heretic Arius, the real doctrine of the Church, 
such as it claimed to have been from the begin- 
ning, and such as it has been maintained for fifteen 
centuries onwards, was defended, above all others, with 
the keenest logic, with the most ardent rhetoric, and 
with indomitable energy, by the mighty Athanasius, 
— he who not long after stood alone, as it was said, 
against the world, and triumphed. The intellectual 
excitement of the day was not unfelt even by the 
heathens themselves ; and many distinguished adhe- 
rents of the old religion came,— some scoffing, some 
trembling, all wondering, — to hear how the Church 
of Christ, that strange confederation which had van- 
quished them at last after three centuries of conflict, 



17 

would solve the most awful questions, wliicli the 
human mind can encounter. These strangers to the 
faith were not indeed admitted to the scene of the 
sacred conference, but they hovered anxiously around 
it, and conversed from time to time with the members 
as they passed in or out, and were admonished some- 
times with compassion, sometimes with yearning love, 
sometimes with grave and authoritative rebuke ; and if 
some still mocked, and some hesitated and said, ' We 
wih hear thee aa'ain on this matter,' others there were 
who were conscience-stricken and converted on the 
spot, and the Holy Spirit added unto the Church daily 
such as shoukl be saved. 

The Synod was assembled, every man in his place, 
when the Emperor Constantme entered, arrayed in 
gokl and purple, and strode with his guards around 
him to the top of the Hall, where, standing for a 
moment before a golden throne, he looked hesitatingly 
around, as if to ask permission to be seated. When he 
took his seat all the ecclesiastics sat down hkewise, 
according to the tradition of the Eoman Senate, all the 
members of which were virtually equal. Then the 
Emperor rose and addressed the assembly in a set 
harangue, explaining the main object of their summons, 
using ' for the majesty of the empire,' as his prede- 
cessors would have phrased it, the sonorous tongue of 
Latium. ' When by the assent,' he said, ' and the aid 
of the Almighty, I had triumphed over my enemies, I 
hoped that I had nothing more to do than to give 
thanks to God, and to rejoice with those whom He had 

c 



18 LECTUEE I. 

delivered by my hand. But as soon as I heard of the 
division existing among you, I judged it to be a press- 
ing matter, which I must not neglect ; and desiring also 
to apply some remedy to this new evil, I have called 
you together without delay, and great is my satisfac- 
tion in being present at your meeting.' With these, 
and such words as these, full of goodwill to the Church, 
its chiefs, and its concerns, but without venturing even 
to propound the subjects to which he invited discussion, 
did Constantine open that memorable council ; giving 
the sanction of the highest civil authority to debates 
which ranged over topics of the deepest spiritual signifi- 
cance ; setting the first precedent in recorded history, 
however moderate and reserved, of the action of a 
regal supremacy in matters ecclesiastical ; giving the 
first fulfilment to the prophecy, that kings should be 
the fathers of the Church, and queens her nursing 
mothers. Deep indeed must have been the interest 
of the civilized world. Christian and Pagan, lay and 
clerical, learned and unlearned, noble and plebeian, in 
the questions which then agitated the Christian Church, 
when the deliberations of this new senate, of this novel 
confederation of the civil and ecclesiastical powers, of 
the emperor and the bishops, of the State and the 
Church, issued in the promulgation of a solemn rule of 
faith, of that form of sound words which has been 
recited daily in the Church for fifteen centuries, and 
still is recited with awe and veneration among us — the 
illustrious creed of Nic^ea. A few years, as we have seen, 
before the incarnation of Jesus Christ, the Eoman sena- 



PEOMULGATIOX OF THE XICEXE CREED. 1^. 

tors listened without shame or shuddering to the utter 
denial of man's spiritual being from the mouth of their 
sovereign Pontiff. Three hundred years after His re- 
surrection, an assembly of priests, the august successor 
of that incredulous Synod, dehberately affirmed the 
most mysterious dogmas of revealed rehgion. 'We 
beheve,' it said, ' in one God, tlie Father Almighty, 
Maker of all things visible and imisible ; And in one 
Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, of the same sub- 
stance with the Father, by whom all thino-s were made : 
Who for us men, and for our salvation came down 
from Heaven, and was incarnate and was made man, 
suffered and rose again the third day, He ascended into 
Heaven, He shall come again to judge both the quick 
and the dead:' — And further, 'We beheve in the Holy 
Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life : and in the Eemis- 
sion of Sins, the Picsurrection of the Body, and the Life 
everlasting.'^ 

Here there are two great facts set before you : an 
immense revolution in human thought has been effected, 
a vast transformation of human feehng. Such change 
was not wrought upon the spot, not by a single 
miraculous stroke of Providence, not by a momentary 
decree of the Almighty, as when He said to chaos, 
' Let there be light, and there was light ;' as when He 
said to Saul of Tarsus, ' I am Jesus whom thou per- 
secutest.' If the conversion of the individual soul is 
rarely sudden and immediate, still more rare — still less, 

1 See Note B. 
c 2 



20 LECTURE I. - 

I may say, possible — is the immediate conversion of a 
people. JSTo ; there was an interval of four centuries, 
crowded with movements of changes outward and in- 
ward ; all slow and gradual, and following justly one 
from another : — the falling away of many prejudices ; 
the scaling off of many folds of inveterate error ; the 
raising up of many footholds of truth and faith. There 
was Hfe in death, energy in decay, rejuvenescence in 
decrepitude. The human mind continued to work by 
its old accustomed methods, but those methods of 
thought were themselves of God's original appointment ; 
the Holy Spirit had brooded over their creation, and 
guided them gently to the end which to Him was 
present from the beginning. Let us seek, with His 
blessed aid and enlightenment, to trace in these Lectures 
the mode of this spiritual revolution, this conversion of 
the Eoman Empire, of the civilized world of antiquity, 
of the natural human intellect in the pride of its 
highest acquirements, from a denial of the first principle 
of positive belief to the assertion of an entire system of 
revealed religion. 



•il 



LECTURE II 



5>«<C 



HEATHEN BELIEF DIRECTED TOWARDS A TEMPORAL 
PROVIDENCE. 



Acts xvii. 22. 

Tlien Paul stood in the midst of Mars'' lull, and said, Ye 
men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too 
superstitious. 

There is no need on the present occasion to discuss 
critically the meaning of the word here rendered 
' superstitious,' nor of the fact from which the apostle 
particularly infers it of the Athenians, when he adds, 
' For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I 
found an altar with this inscription. To the unknown 
God.' We will take the phrase ' too superstitious,' or 
literally 'god or spirit fearing,' to mean, excessively 
addicted to the worship of supernatural powers, Over- 
prone to believe in and tremble before the influence 
of invisible existences, capricious or perverse in the 
apprehension of God's nature, and of the nature of 
His divine rule and providence. Superstition, as here 
spoken of, seems to be an excess or extravagant concep- 
tion of religion : it is the fanatic issue of human thoughts 



22 LECTURE II. 

on subjects too pure, too sublime, and too holy for 
human nature, unenlightened from above, to think of 
duly or wortliily. J^evertheless, even such superstition 
does bear in a certain measure the character of 
religious belief; it is grounded upon the same fun- 
damental principle — the apprehension of a spiritual 
world. 

Now I would have you observe the juxtaposition of 
the rehgious feeling here ascribed to the Athenians 
with the mocking denial, or at best, the timid and 
doubtful anticipation of a future state which is imputed 
to them in what presently follows : ' And when they 
heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked : 
and others said. We will hear thee again of this matter' 
— a text on which I enlarged in my last Lecture, to 
show the imperfect apprehension or popular denial of 
a future retribution in the heathen world. Compare 
these two passages, and it will plainly appear, that in 
St. Paul's view the same people might have, and indeed 
actually had, a keen and conscious apprehension of a 
Divine government, together with a direct renunciation 
of the doctrine of a future retribution. I need not 
say how utterly this is inconsistent with the idea we 
as Christians entertain of religion. We Christians, 
trained from father to son in the teaching of Scrip- 
ture, cannot, I imagine, divorce the two ideas. We 
cannot contemplate for ourselves, hardly can we con- 
ceive in others, the idea of rehgious belief,— of belief 
in God as a moral ruler, and in His providential 
government of the world, — apart from the conviction of 



MODTFICATIOX OF HEATHEX BELIEF. 23 

judgment hereafter. The famous paradox of Warburton 
is founded upon this conviction, upon this instinctive 
assurance, as he maintained it to be, that behef in 
Providence cannot ordinarily subsist, that it cannot 
certainly be maintained among men in society, without 
a behef in a future state of rewards and punishments. 
The omission of this cardinal doctrine, as he argued, 
in the Mosaic economy, formed a conclusive demonstra- 
tion that the law of Moses was no invention of the 
mere human mind ; so manifestly, in his view, does 
such omission contravene the first principles of liuman 
reasoning on the subject of religion. 

I perceive well enough the apparent presumption in 
favour of such a theory. I felt myself authorized to 
declare in my last Lecture that the open denial of 
immortahty in the Eoman Senate implied a general 
repudiation of a fundamental principle of religion. 
I contrasted this repudiation with the assertion of 
Christian dogma at the first of the great Christian 
councils, to mark, at one glance, the entire space of the 
chasm which separated the one age from the other, the 
heathen from the Christian, the Eoman Empire from 
the City of God. Here we see, indeed, two great forces 
arrayed against each other — Behef and Unbelief. 

Such, at least, is the broad and general view of the 
case presented to us. But let us look a little closer, 
and see whether the condition of the heathen mind 
was altogether negative in religious matters. Did the 
heathen deny all obhgations, all objects of religious 
faith, in repudiating the cardinal principle of a future 



24 LECTURE II. 

retribution? Can a man have no apprehension of a 
God because he has no apprehension of iminortahty ? 
Our text points to a different conclusion » The 
Athenians, Httle as they certainly regarded a future 
life, were even too superstitious ; full of a strong appre- 
hension of unknown superior powers, they were blind 
and mean and gross in their conception of them. And 
the same might be shown equally of the Eomans. 

The heathen, as St. Paul says, were to be left 
without excuse, and therefore the eternal power and 
Godhead, at least, of the Deity were made manifest to 
their hearts by the inner witness of the conscience. 
Though they glorified not God in their acts, nor even 
in the justness and purity of their notions, yet they 
knew God so far as to apprehend the fact of His 
Being, His Power, and His Providence. 

I repeat that, speaking broadly, the heathen of 
Greece and Eome, at least the intelhgent classes 
among them — all above the common herd, the women 
and children — had no real belief in a future state. I 
speak not of the teaching or the private aspirations of 
a few philosophers, of which more may be said here- 
after. Nor need I spend words in showing that the 
vulgar mythology, with its Hades and Olympus, its 
Tartarean blackness and Elysian sunshine, was an 
exploded and despised tradition. Whatever hankering 
after a positive belief on matters of such awful interest 
might linger in men's hopes and fears, and find utter- 
ance here and there in their popular literature, there 
was no real and living faith in such things : no 



BELIEF IN BEING AND PROVIDENCE OF GOD. 25 

intelligent man would have publicly acknowledged any 
such anticipations, no priest or preacher was appointed 
to teach them dogmatically ; the rewards and punish- 
ments of a future state, as far as such a state pre- 
tended to be revealed, had become no more than mere 
poetic machinery.^ 

The heathens, then, had no popular behef in a 
future retribution. Xevertheless, they had their 
temples, and their altars ; their gods were represented 
by images, and service was done to them by priests 
and ministers. A comprehensive and intricate ritual 
prescribed the names and characters of hundreds 
of divinities, specified their various attributes and 
functions, interpreted their will, interceded for their 
favour. 'He that cometh to God,' says the Christian 
Scripture, speaking of mankind generally, ' must 
believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them 
that diligently seek Him.'- Tliis is the universal and 
fundamental condition of religious belief. If the 
heathens of Eome did thus come to God, even to a 
God of their own imaginations, ^vith religious service, 
however blind and carnal, they did then assiuredly 
believe in the Being of God, a God of power and in- 
telligence ; and did apprehend in some way, however 
faintly and imperfectly, the fact of His providential 
oversight of man. And accordingly the Gospel had to 
combat not a mere blank negation of all belief, but a 
living and substantive principle of religion. 

1 See Note C. 2 jjeh- xi. 6. 



26 LECTURE II. 

Let me then first place clearly before you tlie fact 
that this religious service was really made a matter 
of conscience, enjoined and enforced by ecclesiastical 
authorities, accepted and acknowledged by the heart 
and understanding of the worshippers. 

We read how, not many years after the above- 
mentioned debate in the Eoman Senate, the factions of 
the Eepublic culminated in a great political apostasy. 
An impious son raised his hand against his parent's 
bosom. The crossing of the Eubicon, the march of 
Caesar upon Eome, was denounced as an act, not of 
rebeUion only, but of impiety and schism. It must be 
met with human arms indeed, but before human arms 
were tried, or while human arms were being tried, it 
might be met also with a solemn religious ceremony — 
by an act of lustration, of expiation, of national humi- 
liation before the insulted powers of the other world. 
Policy and religion joined hand in hand. The Consul 
takes counsel with the Pontiff; the Philosopher enquires 
of the Augur ; they revolve the ancient books, and 
resort to the prescribed usages, and marshal with one 
accord a long procession of priests and statesmen, 
of magistrates and citizens, of Vestals, Salians, and 
Flamens, to stalk around the sacred inclosure of the 
city, and purge its dwellings with a holy lustration. 
The whole population, in an access of superstitious 
fervour, is moved to appease the national divinities by 
an act of national devotion. Men and women, young 
and old, the learned and the vulgar, unite in this 
solemn function with a common will and conscience. 



REVIVAL OF EELIGIOUS USAGE. 27 

How far they believed in the idols to which they bowed 
themselves ; how far they duped one another ; how far 
they were duped themselves, who shall say? The scene 
itself stands before us, a great and impressive fact, 
a fact surely not without a meaning. The mighty 
multitude of the greatest of cities, in an age when 
none believed in a resurrection, none regarded a future 
retribution, was moved by a common impulse to make 
this striking demonstration of its rehgious instincts and 
spiritual convictions. AVe cannot shut our eyes to the 
fact. Whatever abatement we may make from the 
entire genuineness of the sentiment by which this 
multitude was animated, we must allow that there did 
exist, even at this time, among the heathen at Eome 
a principle of rehgious behef Christianity, I say, had 
a real living enemy to encounter.^ 

But this, it may be urged, was a sudden outburst 
of feeling, a paroxysm of alarm, a transient panic of 
unreflecting superstition. Not so : we may judge of 
its depth and reality fi'om the marked revival of reli- 
gious usage, and apparently of actual persuasion, which 
ensued in the next generation. The conviction of the 
existence of Powers unseen, on whose due propitiation 
the safety of the State (in Avhich was enwrapped the 
safety of every citizen) depended, was still deeply 
rooted in the heart of the Eoman even of this latter 
age. Choked it might be, and stifled amid the cares 
of government ; forgotten it might be in the turmoil 
of war ; it might be thrust contemptuously aside in the 

i See Note D. 



28 LECTUEE II. 

flush of victory and triumph, in the selfish enjoyment 
of success, amid the orgies of sensual luxury ; never- 
theless, the stress of circumstances might at any time 
revive it, the call of an astute or ardent ruler might 
evoke it. When the religious principle among the 
Jews of the olden time had been perverted by evil 
influences, they had fallen away to the snares most 
tempting to their peculiar weakness, to the idolatries 
and harlotries of Edom and of Moab. The Eomans, 
when the same principle was corrupted among them, 
surrendered themselves to the charm of their most 
seductive neighbours, the Greeks, and the love of the 
gods of the Capitol waxed cold under the spell of 
sceptics, rationalists, and philosophers. But among 
both Jews and Eomans the religious sentiment was 
again and again revived. The process was alike in both 
cases ; the history seems to repeat itself. The example 
or command of pious kings effected more than once 
a religious revival in Israel and Judah. Asa and 
Hezekiah removed the high places and brake down 
the images, and restored the worship of the God of 
their fathers. The people followed in their steps and 
turned again to the service of Jehovah. ' And Josiah,' 
we read, ' stood by a pillar, and made a covenant 
before the Lord, to walk after the Lord, and to keep 

His commandments And all the people stood to 

the covenant.'^ Such were the acts of the good kings, 
influenced by pure religious feehng, prompting them 

^ 2 Kings xxiii. 3. 



REVIVAL OF RELIGION UNDER AUGUSTUS. 29 

to please God by their own conversion, urging tliem to 
lead their people to propitiate Him by a willing service. 
But Jehu, again, is an instance of a wicked king, a 
pohtic and selfish man, impelled by mixed and impure 
motives of gain, or fear, or statecraft, to put on a show 
of godhness, to effect an imperfect and one-sided re- 
formation. ' Thus Jehu destroyed Baal out of Israel, 
while at the same time he did not himself depart from 
the sin of Jeroboam, who made Israel to sin.'^ 

Now the obligation and responsibihty thus felt by 
the chiefs of Israel and Judah, was confessed not 
less openly by some of the Eoman Emperors. When 
Eome became a monarchy, the spiritual headship of 
the people was assumed by the Ca3sar as definitely as if 
he were the anointed of Jehovah. It might be mere 
craft and pohcy that induced Augustus to call for a 
restoration of national religion ; he knew well that reli- 
gion is the safeguard of thrones, and sought doubt- 
less to clench thereby the obedience of his subjects. 
It might be superstition, for Augustus was the victim 
of many an abject superstition. Great conquerors, the 
reahzers of great projects — great favourites, as we call 
them, of fortune, and we almost sanction the sentiment 
ourselves in caUing them so — generally are superstitious. 
And again, there might be some real belief, some 
genuine religion in it ; for Augustus was too great a 
man not to be strongly, and devoutly impressed with 
the depth and breadth and height of the mission to 

» 2 Kings X. 28, 29. 



30 LECTURE II. 

whicli he was appointed. At the same time, from the 
innovating spirit of the theorists and philosophers 
Augustus was singularly free, if not absolutely hostile 
to it. While the educated men of Eome were banded, 
as it were, in the contending camps of the Stoics and 
Epicureans and Platonists ; while almost every eminent 
statesman among them announced himself the disciple 
of some dogmatic teacher, as publicly as he declared 
himself the follower of a party-leader, it was remarked 
that this man, the most eminent of all, stood scornfully 
aloof from all the schools of thought and moral doc- 
trine. The religion of the genuine Eoman had no sym- 
pathy with them; the personal aspirations they might 
engender, the yearning after the invisible, the ardent 
gaze upon an ideal of virtue and holiness ; these senti- 
ments in which, imperfect and partial as in the mere 
natural heart they must be, we as Christians still place 
the first seeds and germs of religious principle, had no 
connection with the train of thought and basis of feel- 
ing on which the system of the Priests and PontiiFs, 
the Augurs and the Flamens, was established. Such 
were not the pillars on which the conqueror could 
build his Empire. He must revert to the old founda- 
tions : he must stand upon the ancient ways. 

Hence, then, his propping of the falling temples,, 
his repair of decayed and smoke-soiled images ; hence 
his erection of thrice a hundred shrines in the city, his 
revival of old religious usages, his enforcement of the 
sanctions of property and marriage, his correction of 
social irregularities, his Pantheon, his Secular Games, 



GENUINE CHARACTER OF THIS REVIVAL. 31 

his incessant sacrifices and lustrations. Such were the 
elements of a rehgious revival, which Augustus deemed 
requisite for the gaining of Divine favour, for the safety 
of the State, for the perpetuation, it may be, of his own 
government and power. The man who in his youth, 
when himself an aspirant and an adventurer, had 
mocked the gods of his country with indecent ribaldry 
— a Jehu in ambition, in bloodshed, in every personal 
impurity — in mature age, when accepted, as it seemed, 
for the favourite of heaven, the first child of Olympus, 
acknowledged that his own rule, hke the sovereignty 
of Eome herself, depended on the Powers above, 
and was founded on the confession of their mighty 
name. Nor was this a mere personal feeling. The 
general consent of the writers of the time, admitting 
this principle of a providential government, accords 
fully with it, and reflects the temper of the age as 
faithfully as of the sovereign. 

There was then a deep religious feeling among the 
Eomans, however blind and narrow we must esteem it, 
in which their chief himself partook, even while he 
profited by it. This feehng is attested, among many 
other tokens, by the outburst at the time of pretended 
propliecy, by the general augury of a spiritual mani- 
festation ; showing that it was no mere outward pre- 
tence, no mere ceremonial reformation, not a revival 
only of masonry and upholstery. Paganism had 
indeed no tap-root of moral renovation. A religious 
revival in the age of Augustus may have been but 
the maudlin remorse which follows on a surfeit 



32 LECTURE IL 

of sin and selfish indulgence. Yet for a moment 
at least the nation's heart was stricken, its conscience 
agitated ; and the chief who rejected the exotic 
doctrines of the ideologists ; who restored the cult of 
the national divinities ; who sate once a year at the gate 
of his palace, and propitiated Nemesis by the begging 
of alms ; who appealed to the bystanders at his death- 
bed with a smile, ' Have *I played well my part in the 
show and drama of life ? ' was, I conceive, a signal 
example of the native power of the rehgious sentiment 
of the Eoman people. 

It was necessary to examine this example closely if 
we would estimate the work which it was appointed 
for the Gospel to effect on the heart of the heathen. I 
will not detain you with a survey of a similar revival, 
impelled a hundred years later by another Csesar, 
another profligate, another tyrant, yet another anxious 
votary of the gods of Eome. It was the boast of 
Domitian that in his youth he had waged the wars of 
Jove, in defence of the Capitol ; that in a later age he 
had scaled the heavens for himself and his family, by 
piously restoring it. He too enforced the religious code 
of antiquity with the ruthless barbarity of a Jehu ; he 
too rejected every spiritual innovation, persecuted the 
Christians and expelled the philosophers. The heart 
and conscience of his countrymen, alarmed by many 
signs and sufierings, responded to the impulse he gave 
it ; and the student of history cannot fail to appreciate 
the sense of religious responsibility evinced by the 
Eoman people under the rule of the Flavian dynasty. 



heathe:n' idea of keligiok 33 

^Yllat then, we may ask, was this rehgious idea which 
was before Christianity ; which was so widely spread, 
so deeply rooted, so keenly felt, so importunate in its 
assaults on the conscience even of worldhns^s and 
sensualists ; which all the vice, and sin, and carnal 
abominations of the natural heart could not extinguish 
or allay ; which Christianity was sent into the world to 
combat, to try as ^\ith fire, to purge its dross and draw 
forth its residue of gold ; which was so hostile in its 
outward form to Christianity that the two could not 
endure together, but its rites must be abolished, its 
mysteries suppressed, its vanity demonstrated ; while it 
still held fast the true foundation of the fear of God, 
and confession of His providence ? 

Look back for a moment at the early world, in the 
aspect of nature and the works of man ; at the woods 
in which men planted their first stockades, the rocks 
on which they founded their primeval fortifications, 
the lakes in which they raised their first ampliibious 
dwelhng-places. Look at the masses of Cyclopean 
masonry, piled upon rugged cliffs ; the soHd bulk of 
earthworks, stretching from hill to hill, and from sea 
to sea. Do not these ghmpses of society in infancy 
point, and nowhere more plainly than in Italy itself, 
to a state of existence in which men hved together in 
constant apprehension of other men, in which combi- 
nation for mutual protection was the first and para- 
mount object of all ; in which mutual fear was the 
common bond of union, and every nation, tribe, and 
clan was banded to^^^ether ao-ainst all its neidibours ? 

Do O 

D 



34 LECTURE II. 

This is not a description, perhaps, of the patriarchal 
and pastoral communities of the plain of Shinar and 
the banks of the Euphrates ; but looking westward to 
Greece and Italy, we observe how the necessary con- 
ditions of civil society issued in the most jealous of all 
national institutions, the most exclusive of all national 
beliefs. The idea of Greek and Eoman religion was to 
secure by a national worship the enjoyment of national 
advantages, protection, favour and reward, escape from 
national disasters and national punishments. This was 
the political religion of states and peoples. Their 
priests were the mediators between God and the 
Nation, between Heaven and the City. The Citizen 
was merged in the State ; for the State he was born, 
he hved, he married, he tilled his land, he bequeathed 
his goods, he perpetuated his family. The Eoman 
worshipped for his country rather than for himself. 
To the gods of the enemy he opposed the gods of 
Eome ; and if he conquered the enemy he was anxious 
to propitiate his gods though baffled, and draw them 
by craft, by flattery, even by force, to his own side. 
His idea of religion was of a national, not a personal 
covenant with God. His rule of right was framed on 
views of pubhc expediency. If his principles were 
narrow or corrupt, his strictness in maintaining them 
was often worthy of a better code and a higher sanction. 
But whatever his idea of duty, whatever his law, he 
recognised no future retribution for his deeds. Like the 
Athenian, he was even too superstitious in his appre- 
hension of a Divine Power ; beheving in God, he believed 



THE POPULAE BELIEF AT ROME. 35 

ia Him as a Eewarder indeed of them that diligently 
seek Him ; but the care of the gods, he imagined, was 
for the nation rather than the individual worshipper, 
their favour temporal, their rewards and punishments 
of the earth earthy. Starting, I say, from the notion of 
the gods as national patrons, he could scarce conceive 
in his mind — surely he could not logically conceive of 
them — as ushering the man, the citizen, into a 
personal immortality. 

The tendency of such a fixed idea of religion was to 
resolve the essence of piety into the fulfilment of 
ceremonial observances. Its main object was to 
preserve the traditions of immemorial antiquity, to 
hand down intact from generation to generation the 
forms and usages of the past. The popular belief of 
Eome pointed to a period long since past, when the 
people was exemplarily religious, when the Divine 
services were punctually performed, when the gods 
were always propitious, when the State was always 
prosperous, when her men were brave, her women 
chaste, her legions triumphant. In every crisis of ter- 
ror or disaster the heart of the multitude turned with 
unutterable yearnings to the tradition of that happy 
age ; and sought to recover, were it but possible, by 
fond recurrence to the ancient practice, the favour and 
happiness they seemed to have foregone. The piety of 
the Eomans looked ever backward : its ideal lay behind 
it, not before it. It aspired to present safety or en- 
joyment by a faithful imitation of an imaginary Past ; 
but it liad no standard of future excellence or future 

D 2 



36 LECTURE II. 

blessedness to attain unto, no rising star to follow, no 
expansion, no development to anticipate. With no 
yearnings for consummation and perfection hereafter, it 
took no heed of advance or improvement here. Of 
v^hatever greatness or goodness man was by nature 
capable, he was supposed to have already attained to 
it ; enough, and more than enough, if he had not fallen 
from the height of his early attainments, and forfeited 
his privileges for ever. How obscure the Past! how 
comfortless the Present ! how blank the Future ! A 
Divine power with no adequate subject for its exer- 
cise 1 A Divine Providence with no consistent scheme 
of creation and government ! And yet, so strong, so 
lively was this corrupt conception, this narrow view 
of God and Providence, this nervous apprehension 
of temporal rewards and punishments, fostered by 
long ages of political success — that not only was it 
made the subject of a national revival under an 
Augustus and a Domitian, but it continued to struggle 
on under many a mortal discouragement — retaining its 
hold of the throbbing heart—animating the body of 
expiring Paganism, for many a century after them. 
The last phase of the worship of Olympus was the 
personification of Eome herself as the patron deity of 
the Komans, and of Victory the embodied symbol of 
their national power and success. To the last moment 
the simple theory of the Gospel — which the Apostle 
required a vision to conceive and reahze — that God is 
no respecter of persons, but that in every nation he 
that feareth Him and worketh righteousness is accepted 



BELIEF IN A NATIONAL PROVIDENCE. 37 

of Him, was strange and abhorrent from the prejudices 
of the heathen. The City of God, in the Christian 
dispensation, is neither Eome nor Athens, nor even 
Jerusalem, but the society of behevers on earth in 
spiritual communion with the saints in heaven. It has 
no promise of temporal favour, no assurance of defence 
against the world or the flesh ; its promises point to a 
future reward, its terrors respect an impending re- 
tribution. It was to this behef, simple to us, but 
strange to him, that the heathen was to be brought — 
slowly, painfully, under stress of manifold influences, 
which I hope on future occasions to unfold. But he 
had still, at the time of our Lord's coming, a sub- 
stantive behef of his own ; a belief most ahen from the 
Gospel, most visionary to the enlightened reason ; a 
rehgion of temporal views and sanctions, a rehgion of 
national not individual import. To this he had been 
led by the first necessities of his social condition ; in 
this he had been confirmed by the success which had 
long seemed to attend upon it ; to this, if ever forgetful 
of it in his prosperity, if ever disgusted with it in his 
adversity, still from time to time he passionately 
recurred, full of horror at his own backshding, full of 
hope for his tardy resipiscence. Three hundred years 
after tlie first preaching of the Gospel the chastened 
eloquence of the Christian Lactantius was still employed 
in exposing this spiritual perversion, this sacrifice of 
the soul to the lust of the eye, and the pride of life. 

' And now,' he says, ' to sum up the Christian theory 
briefly. The world was made that man might be born 



38 LECTURE 11, 

into it. Man was made that he might recognise God 
the Maker of the world, and of himself. We recognise 
Him that we may worship Him ; we worship Him that 
we may earn immortality through the works which 
are His peculiar service ; we receive the reward of 
immortality that, being made like unto the angels, we 
may serve our Lord and Father for ever, and be His 
everlasting kingdom. This is the sum of all things ; 
this the secret of God, the mystery of creation, to 
which they are strangers who, following present lusts, 
have abandoned themselves to things frail and earthly, 
and have plunged in deadly pleasures, as in the mire, 
souls born for heavenly occupation. 

' But what sense can there be in the worship of the 
gods of the heathen ? If they are many in number, if 
they are worshipped by men for the sake of wealth, 
honour, victory, which profit for this life only ; if we 
are created for no purpose ; if we are born by chance 
for our own selves and for pleasure only ; if after death 
we are nothing, what so vain, so foolish, so frivolous as 
man's life and being, and the whole world itself, which, 
infinite as it is in magnitude, and wonderful in structure, 
is thus abandoned to vanity ? For why do the winds 
blow and collect the clouds ? why gleam the lightnings ? 
why roar the thunders, and descend the rains for the 
increase of earth's manifold offspring ? why, in short, 
doth all nature labour, that nothing may be wanting of 
the things by which man's being is sustained, if life be 
empty, if we wither to nothing, if nought be in us of 
greater interest to God ? But if it be sin to say, nor 



COMBATED BY LACTANTIUS. 39 

possible to believe, that that which we see to consist 
with the highest plan and purpose, was not itself for 
some great purpose constituted, what sense can there 
be in these errors of the false religions, and in this 
persuasion of the philosophers that the souls of men 
do perish ? Surely none whatever.' ^ 

' See Note E. 



40 



LECTURE III.- 



o^^c 



EXPANSION OF HEATHEN BELIEF BY THE TEACHING OF 
THE PHILOSOPHERS. 



Acts xvii. 26. 

God hath made of one blood all nations of men, for to 
dwell on all the face of the earth. 

Few declarations of Holy Writ have sunk more deeply 
into the heart and conscience of Christendom than this, 
by which we confess the unity of the human race in its 
claims on man and God, on the sympathy of our fellow- 
beings, and on the justice and mercy of our Creator. 
This is the point to which all Scripture seems to lead 
up. The doctrine which is plainly set forth in the first 
chapter of Genesis, which is affirmed repeatedly in the 
record of God's dealings with the Jewish people, when 
He chose them out from among other and mightier 
nations, for no merit or superior character of their own, 
but for the special purposes of His providence, to be 
merged again once more in the general mass of mankind, 
Jew and Gentile, among whom the Church and spiritual 
people of Christ should be estabhshed — this doctrine, I 
say, of the essential unity of our race is again dogma- 



THE PEmCIPLE OF CHEISTIAN BELIEF. 41 

tically asserted in the text of St. Paul, and asserted 
or implied elsewhere throughout the volume of the 
New Testament — made in fact the very foundation 
of the promised preaching of salvation to the Gentiles. 
Such is the thorough consistency of the Word of God 
from one end to the other ; such the Divine inspira- 
tion of truth breathed into it from the beginning, and 
continued to it even unto the end. And this doctrine, 
I repeat, is one which all Christendom has uniformly 
accepted as certain and divine. There has been, I 
suppose, no doubt of it at any time in the Church ; so 
entirely does it seem to harmonize with our own moral 
convictions, as well as with the express declaration of 
Scripture. Nevertheless, this doctrine is far from being 
one of which men can be said to have a natural and 
instinctive apprehension. It is a truth engrafted upon 
the human stock. Let us see how the matter stood at 
the time wdien the apostle thus definitely announced it. 
I explained in my last lecture the principle on wliich 
the religion of Eome was founded, and on which it still 
continued to rest, fixed by its weight, if not grappled 
by the roots, at the period of our Lord's actual 
teaching. This principle was the belief in national 
divinities, the patrons of the State, in the protection 
of one favoured race against all others, the maintenance 
of a federal compact between Heaven and the City, in 
which the individual worshipper had but a relative and 
proportionate interest. This was the hostile principle 
with wdiich the Gospel was to make no terms, to hold 
no peace ; to combat it, first where it lingered in 
the bosom of the descendant of Abraham, but more 



42 LECTURE III. 

especially, more permanently, to combat it where it 
was enthroned in the prejudices, en woven in the selfish- 
ness of the Eoman and the Greek. Till this principle 
was overthrown, Christianity could not triumph ; as 
long as it held sway over the human heart to which it 
was naturally congenial, Christianity could make no 
sound or palpable progress in the world. At this 
moment it was a formidable foe to the Gospel. It not 
only dwelt in the hearts and persuasions of the people, 
but was supported by all the powers of poHtical interest ; 
it glowed with the pomp of ceremonial observances ; it 
was hallowed by the charm of long possession, by its 
pretended appeal to actual experience, and the demon- 
stration it afiected to derive from the worldly success of 
the Eoman Empire. It was still a hving and active 
principle, for it was capable of a marked revival, a new 
growth and development, as proved more than once in 
the course of the Eoman history. But God's word had 
gone forth that His Church was founded upon a rock, 
and the gates of hell should not prevail against it. He 
had launched His Gospel into the world ; the apostles 
were bearing the good tidings from land to land, and 
the motto they inscribed on their banner when they 
offered to do battle with all the powers of the false 
religions was such words as those of the text, ' God 
hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell 
on all the face of the earth ; ' ^ 'By one Spirit are we all 
baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, 
whether we be bond or free ;'^ and, ' God is no respecter 

1 Acts xvii. 26. 2 1 Cor. xii. 13. 



SPIKITUAL DOCTEIXE OF PL.\TO. 43 

of persons ; but in every nation lie tliat feareth Him, 
and worketh righteousness, is accepted with Him ;'^ 
and again, ' There is neitlier Greek nor Jew, circumci- 
sion nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor 
free : but Christ is all, and in all.' - 

In fact, however formidable was the fi'ont which the 
power of the false rehgions advanced against the first 
preaching of the Truth, the principle on which it stood 
was already sapped fi^om ^^^tliin by the circumstances 
of society around it, and the slow and gradual influence 
of social opinion. Four centuries before Christ a doc- 
trine had been promulgated in which the Fathers of the 
Christian Church recognised a faint adumbration of 
some hneaments of Christian Truth, in which the 
sphitual character of God as the common source of 
all human spirituality, the reality and nearness of His 
providential government, the possibihty at least of a 
future state of retribution, and the duties of repentance 
and devotion towards God, of love and general charity 
towards men, had been set forth in pleasing though 
uncertain colours.^ Lofty indeed, and spiritual as the 
teaching of Plato was, it was baffled in its operation, 
and degraded by the inveterate prejudice of the Grecian 
and the Pagan — their prejudice against the natural 
equality and unity of man, his equal claim on God, Ins 
common right to social and political freedom, his right 
to live in personal relation to his Maker through his 
own conscience, and not merely in a political relation 
to him through the state of which he was socially a 

1 Acts X. 34, 35. 2 Col. iii. 11. 3 See Note F. 



44 LECTURE III. 

citizen. The actual division, it would seem, of Greece 
into rival communities operated so forcibly on Plato's 
imagination, that he could not conceive of mankind as 
living in a single or a widely diffused community ; and 
his ideal of a political Utopia was not a broad cosmo- 
polite association of men of various races, creeds, and 
colours, and chmates, but the narrowest and closest 
combination of a few select thousands — even the 
number he expressly limited — to keep themselves apart 
in all their public relations from all the rest of mankind. 
So only could he imagine that the practical end of true 
philosophy and religion could be attained. So only could 
mankind, in his partial view, acquire or retain a just 
conception of their relation to the Divine, and fulfil the 
spiritual object of their being. His theory fell short 
of his principles, and whatever in his religious creed 
was truly expansive and liberal, stood in glaring con- 
tradiction to his pohtical doctrines. The combination 
of the two in one system could result only in a strange 
and disappointing inconsistency.^ 

It would seem that this inconsistency did not escape 
the penetrating vision of the next great master of 
heathen philosophy, Aristotle. Warned by it, this 
teacher took a step backward. Instead of carrying on - 
the great spiritual theory of Plato, and making it 
logical by widening the basis of humanity on which it 
rested, he yielded still more to the prejudices of his 
countrymen, and was content to regard man and his 
spiritual claims still more exclusively from the narrow 

1 See Note G. 



ARISTOTLE S STEP BACKWARDS. 45. 

Grecian stand-point. He avowed without remorse the 
preeminence of one race over every other ; he declared 
the distinction to be natural and necessary between man 
and man, Greek and barbarian ; as far as in him lay he 
would have fixed once and for ever the limits beyond 
which truth and knowledge, political rights, spiritual 
privileges, should not pass. He would have confined the 
work of God in the soul of man to one petty pro\dnce, 
and thereby have practically aboHshed the work of 
God in the soul of man altogether. This single step 
backwards, so rashly, so inopportunely taken, would 
have destroyed the first germ of true religion in the 
world of Pagan antiquity.^ 

Eashly indeed, and inopportunely ; for while the 
philosopher was baffing himself by the acuteness of his 
own logic, God was doing a work in the w^orld which 
from the mere force of circumstances would utterly 
refute and discredit it. While the philosopher in his 
closet was mapping out the nations of the earth, by 
their political divisions, and civil constitutions, the 
conqueror m the field was bringing them, far and near, 
under one sceptre, one law, and one name. Aristotle 
was dividing and discriminating the hundred and fifty 
pohties of the civihzed world ; Alexander was laying 
broad and deep the foundations of the Macedonian 
Empire. It was the work of God : not merely in the 
ordinary sense in which we reverently and justly ascribe 
to Providence every movement among men on the face 
of His earth, and the more confidently so, the wider 

1 See Note H. 



46 LECTURE III. 

and more permanent it is ; but God EQmself lias claimed 
this work as His own by the indication He gave of 
it in the records of His Word, by the mouth of His 
prophet Daniel. 

Grod, who hath made of one blood all nations of men 
for to dwell on the face of the earth, and hath deter- 
mined the time before appointed, and the bounds of 
their habitation ; God, who by a vision revealed to His 
Apostle Peter that He is no respecter of persons, was 
pleased by a dream, and the interpretation of a dream, 
to foreshadow the establishment of the third great 
Empire, which, after the Assyrian and the Persian, 
ruling much more widely, founded far more deeply, 
operating more gravely and permanently than they, 
should combine the nations of the world together, and 
force upon the understanding and conscience of men 
the truth of this great spiritual doctrine, the essential 
unity of the human race ; the doctrine which, true 
long before Christianity, has been accepted, diffused, 
and perpetuated by Christianity itself 

It was vain to teach this doctrine by the lips of a 
heathen master, however wise and gifted. The pure 
and spiritual Plato had tried and failed. Aristotle had 
shrunk from the attempt. But what Plato could not 
do, and his successor abandoned as an illusion, was 
effected by a pohtical revolution, long prepared but 
suddenly executed, by the establishment of the world- 
wide empire of Alexander, foretold by God's prophet, 
and recognised on its occurrence as the work of His 
far-desio[nino[ Providence. 



THE MACEDONIAN EMPIRE. 47 

The prophecy of Daniel, accepted by the Jews as the 
inspired word of God, points clearly to this event as a 
great epoch in the history of God's spiritual dealings 
with mankind. Its full import and significance appear 
when we regard it in its direct consequences, not as the 
triumph of one set of heathens over another, not as the 
exultation of the West over the East, of Europe over 
Asia, of one type of civihzation over another, of one 
form of poHtical society over another, of one family of 
languages over another, great as the effect of each and 
all of these revolutions has been on the progress of 
human thought — but as the authoritative promulgation 
of the doctrine of the natural equahty of men before 
God, and the fusion of many peoples, many laws, many 
ideas in one universal mould. 

Nebuchadnezzar dreamed, as we read in Daniel, of a 
third kingdom of brass, which should rule over all the 
earth ; ^ and this was interpreted in the time of Jose- 
phus, and by the Jews themselves, of a people coming 
from the West, clad in brazen armour — not in the 
gilded silk or cotton vestments of the East — which 
should destroy the empire of the Medes and Persians. 
The conqueror claimed for himself the title of king of 
all the world, and appeared m his own conceit, and to 
the imagination of the millions around him, as he stood 
on the confines of the habitable globe or plunged his 
courser's hoofs in the waves of the Indian Ocean, the 
master of all the land and sea. 

Of the action of this conquest no description is given 

1 Daniel ii. 39. 



48 LECTURE III. 

in the bare outline of the Scripture record ; but we 
may add that the influence of Grecian conquest was 
eminently soothing and civilizing ; it diffused ideas of 
humanity and moral culture, while the conquerors 
themselves imbibed, on their side, the highest of moral 
lessons, lessons of liberality, of toleration, of sympathy 
with all Grod's human creation. 'Alexander,' says 
Plutarch, ' did not hearken to his preceptor Aristotle, 
who advised him to bear himself as a prince among the 
Greeks, his own people, but as a master among the 
barbarians ; to treat the one as friends and kinsmen, the 
others as animals or chattels. . . . But, conceiving that 
he was sent by God to be an umpire between all, and 
to unite all together, he reduced by arms those whom 
he could not conquer by persuasion, and formed of a 
hundred diverse nations one single universal body, 
mingling as it were in one cup of friendship the customs, 
the marriages, and the laws of all. He desired that all 
should regard the whole world as their common country, 
the good as fellow-citizens and brethren, the bad as 
aliens and enemies ; that the Greek should no longer 
be distinguished from the foreigner by arms or costume, 
but that every good man should be esteemed an 
Hellene, every evil man a barbarian.' ^ 

Here, in a few rapid touches, enforced by a vivid 
illustration which we may pass over, is the picture of 
the new humane polity, the new idea of human society 
flashed upon the imagination of mankind by the 
establishment of the Macedonian Empire. Such at 

1 Plut. de fort. Alex. See Note I. 



DOCTRINE OF THE UNITY OF MANKIND. 49 

least it appeared to the mind of a writer five centuries 
later; but there are traces preserved, even in the 
wrecks of ancient civilization, of the moral effect which 
it actually produced on the feelings of society much 
more nearly contemporaneous. The conqueror indeed 
perished early, but not prematurely. He had done his 
work as the instrument of Providence ; and Providence 
broke at once and threw away the instrument which, 
selfish in its aims and arbitrary in its actions, had 
perhaps, humanly speaking, no claim on its forbear- 
ance. But the providential work survived. The great 
empire was split into many fragments, but each long 
preserved a sense of the unity from which it was 
broken off. All were leavened more or less with a 
common idea of civilization, and recognised man as one 
being in various stages of development, to be trained 
under one guidance and elevated to one spiritual 
level. In the two great kingdoms of Egypt and Syria, 
which sprang out of the Macedonian — in the two great 
cities of Alexandria and Antioch, to which the true 
religion owes so deep a debt — the unity of the human 
race was practically asserted and maintained. Alex- 
andria invited all nations to meet tosrether and ex- 
change in her common mart the products of every 
land, and enjoy the material fruits of God's creation. 
Antioch was for ages the chosen home of science and 
philosophy, and fused the religious ideas of many 
peoples, which she discriminated and harmonized with 
a zest pecuhar to herself. In Alexandria the Jews 
were welcomed and domiciled, and encouraged to 

E 






50 LECTURE III. 

diffuse the knowledge of tlie law of Israel by the trans- 
lation of the older Scriptures : in Antioch the fact was 
first recognised that a new rehgion had appeared in 
the world, that a new revelation had been made to 
men ; the difference between the Jews and the followers 
of Jesus, Jews themselves by birth and by religion, was 
perceived and appreciated : at Antioch the behevers in 
our holy faith were first called by the name of Christians. 
But intellectual ideas which were received and 
cultivated at Antioch and Alexandria could not fail to 
receive admittance at the home of all intellect, Athens. 
The doctrine of human unity became a cherished 
doctrine in the schools which had resounded not long 
before with the utterance of the exclusive and selfish 
Hellenic sentiment, that the Greek is not as the bar- 
barian, the bondmen not as the free. Three centuries 
of preparation passed away, and St. Paul, the first 
preacher of the gospel to the Greeks, could declare 
without a murmur of disapprobation, without a whisper 
of disgust, the fundamental doctrine of the true and 
universal faith, that ' God hath made of one blood all 
nations of men for to dwell on the face of the earth.' 
But was this the Athens of Solon and Pericles, and 
Plato and Aristotle ? By no means : such a declaration 
could have had no place in an address to the Athenians 
of those earher ages. To them it would have sounded 
strange and barbarous ; it would have been received 
with mockery or clamour ; it would have been re- 
pudiated with amazement and indignation ; it would 
have made no spiritual impression at all. Such an idea 



PREPAEATION FOR ST. PAULS PREACHING. 51 

was then unknown and unimagined. Conceptions of 
religion were then strictly local and national ; concep- 
tions of philosophy, though they might ostensibly reject 
the restrictions of positive faith, were not the less con- 
fined, by early mental training and still imperious pre- 
judices, to a circle m this respect httle, if at all, wider. 
The bond of positive belief was indeed broken ; but the 
philosopher dragged after him, at each remove, no 
Hght portion of his chain. But, after three centuries 
of national amalgamation, the result of a wide-spread 
pohtical revolution, after the diffusion of Grecian ideas 
among every people from the Ionian to the Caspian or 
the Eed Sea, and the reception in return of manifold 
ideas, and in rehgious matters of much higher ideas, 
fi-ord the Persian, the Indian, the Egyptian, and the 
Jew, the people even of Athens, the very centre and 
eye of Greece, were prepared to admit the cardinal 
doctrine of Paul's preaching — to take at least some 
common ground Avith him on the very foundation of 
true religion — to look, perhaps, with the more favour 
upon him, that he, a Jew, one of a tribe notorious 
for their exclusiveness and national prejudices, came 
before them bowing, as they might suppose, to the 
majesty of their own Cathohc creed, with what was 
now in its turn exalted into a philosophical doctrine — 
with what was serenely contemplated as a great and 
fruitful truth, revealed to the wise and prudent, if even 
yet regarded askance by the vulgar and illiberal among 
men.^ 

1 See Note J. 
B 2 



52 LECTURE III. 

A great and a fruitful truth ! fruitful in spiritual 
conceptions of tlie Godhead, fruitful in lofty views of 
human duty and obligation, in glorious aspirations 
regarding the nature and destiny of man — a great and 
fruitful truth, the sole hope and stay of man in 
the contest of the heart and conscience against the 
narrow and debasing influence of superstitious dogmas, 
until the coming of Christ and the preaching of the 
gospel, and the shining of the day-spring from on high 
upon the soul ! 

I can give but a few words to a sketch of the prin- 
ciples derived from Plato, and developed by the later 
philosophy of the Stoics, which placed the higher 
minds among the heathen in antagonism with the 
popular and political religion, and might bring them, 
both at Athens and at Eome, into sympathetic relation 
with the preaching of the Apostle. 

The ethical speculations of Plato and his followers 
led them to conceptions, hitherto unimagined, of man's 
position here below, of duty and responsibility, of sin 
and virtue, of penitence and assurance, before God, of 
the obligation to suffer — nay, even to seek and court 
the chastisement of sins for the sake of a spiritual bless- 
ing. The Christian mystic is not more entranced in the 
contemplation of the Supreme Holiness — the Christian 
ascetic does not more fervently denounce the sinfulness 
of the flesh, and the need of subjecting the body to 
the spirit — than Plato and the Stoics who derived from 
him. Sins and Virtues, in the view of the higher Greek 
philosophy, are to be measured by their agreement or 



CATHOLIC SPIRIT OF STOIC PHILOSOPHY. 53 

contrast with an ideal of Justice, Wisdom, Temperance, 
or Fortitude — an ideal placed as higii as mere human 
reason could exalt it. From these lofty abstractions 
they seemed to realize a Supreme Existence, one ana 
universal, eternal and immutable — the image of every 
virtue, the source of all good, the sole unerring judge 
of every approximation of human actions to the normal 
standard of goodness and holiness. Sin they punished 
by the stings of conscience, and thus gave a spiritual 
colour to the gross traditions of the vulgar ; while the 
expiations, the fasts, the lustrations of ritual rehgion 
expressed to their minds the necessity of reparation for 
crime, and the terrors wliich naturally haunt the souls 
of the guilty. It is the offence, and not the punish- 
ment, they said, that men ought to dread ; the corrup- 
tion of the moral sense by sin, not the loss of favom^s 
and blessings, that men ought to abhor and flee from. 
Like John the Apostle, they would have men do well 
for love, for love of goodness and justice, not from fear. 
And virtue, in their view, has its reward in a good con- 
science, which suffices in every extremity ; virtue is 
the fulfilment of a rule, the reahzation of a harmony, 
the accomphshment of a divine purpose. Yhtue is 
divine, and witnesses to the divine nature within us. 

Now, such ideas as these, refined and exalted as they 
were under the system of the Stoics, may transport us 
beyond the sphere of Greece and pm^e Grecian specu- 
lation. They breathe the sphit of Ebionites in the 
wilderness, of Persian Magi in the plains of Media, of 
Brahmins by the banks of the Indus and the Ganges ; 



54 LECTURE III. 

and it was, no doubt, by all these and kindred elements 
that they were modified or coloured. The fusion of 
nations under one political yoke tended, I say, to the 
fusion of ideas, and resulted in a marked elevation 
of heathen sentiment. Compare for a moment this 
teaching with that of a Socrates and a Xenophon, the 
most direct representatives of pure Grecian thought. 
How profound the difference ! That which makes the 
value of temperance, for instance, in the eyes of these 
earher masters, is that it assists men to act with 
manhness and energy; while to the Stoics its merit 
consists in its detaching us from the flesh, the body, 
and the earth. Courage again, in the one view, has 
for its end the attainment of empire or of hberty ; in 
the other, it is the complement of temperance, and 
fortifies us in the struggle against the world and the 
senses. Love, in the one doctrine, is the expansion 
and purification of mere human sensibility ; in the 
other, it raises man to aspu-e after the superhuman, to 
yearn for communion with an ideal, to seek absorption 
in God. It is the passion for the Eternal and the 
Infinite ; it is the presentiment of Immortality.^ 

This presentiment, this aspiration, this hope, and 
almost faith in immortahty, is the point at which the 
liighest Grecian philosophy culminates. Behef in a 
future state is the touchstone of all spiritual conceptions 
of human nature. Towards this they chmb step by 
step, even if they cannot fuUy attain to it, or keep it 
when attained for a moment ; from this, as they faU 

1 See Note K. 



PEESO^^AL RELATION- TO GOD. 55 

away, they faint and fade into the earthly and the 
sensuaL This is the great point of distinction between 
moral and ceremonial rehgions, between a rule of 
action and a cult, between personal and pohtical con- 
ceptions of our relation to God and to Providence. 

This aspiration, this behef, reveals to us our personal 
relation to a Higher Being. It equahzes men in their 
nature and condition ; it discovers to them an essential 
unity in the whole race of mankind. It impugns and 
overthrows the natural and vulgar demand for an ex- 
clusive patron Deity, and a national compact with 
him. In the more spiritual doctrine of Plato and the 
Platonizers lay undoubtedly the germ of that trans- 
formation of heathen opinion which resulted, under the 
teaching of St. Paul and the Christian Church, with 
the effectual working of tlie Holy Spirit, in the con- 
version of the Eoman Empii^e.^ 

Yet how faint, how feeble, how imperfect was tliis 
doctrine ! how surrounded by prejudices, how en- 
feebled and confined by the counteracting influence of 
opposing ideas ! Let us examine a httle more closely 
the idea of immortahty as taught by Plato, and ac- 
cepted rather than firmly held by the more spiritual of 
the Stoics. 

Pirst, the soul, they said, was immortal, because it 
is one and simple, without parts or material elements, 
and therefore indivisible and indissoluble. It is not a 
mere harmony, resulting from tlie contexture of the 
body, mtli which it is here found in connection ; for it 

1 See Note L. 



56 LECTURE III. 

commands and dominates over the body as an inde- 
pendent substance. It has nothing to fear, then, from 
the dissolution of the body, which is not itself essential 
to its existence. Nor has it any principle of decay or 
corruption of its own ; for sin is its only infirmity, 
and sin, as an abstract principle, has no tendency to 
destroy it. 

Again, the eternal truths or the ideas which are 
simple, immutable and divine, are the natural objects 
of the soul of man. The soul is therefore analogous 
and conformable to things that do not change, and 
accordingly has itself, like them, a principle of im- 
mortality. 

Such are, the one the physical, the other what I may 
call perhaps the sentimental argument, on which Plato 
strongly insists, and to which we may continue to 
attach such weight as is really due to them, without 
depending wholly or even principally upon them. For 
there is a third demonstration from the moral nature 
of man, and this the strongest of all unrevealed ar- 
guments for the permanent existence of the soul, 
which rests on the need of a firture state of retribution 
to equalize human conditions, to recompense virtue 
and punish sin, to relieve man from the intolerable 
anguish of beholding the sufferings of the good, and 
the prosperity here on earth of the wicked. This is 
the common argument of Christianity, which declares 
the vindication ofGod's justice and moral government 
as a main object of revelation. But turn to Plato and 
the Stoics, and but little reference will you find to any 



STOIC THEORY OF EETRIBUTION. 57 

argument of this kind. They may, indeed, set forth 
the fact of a future retribution as the explanation of 
certain ancient traditions; they employ the machinery 
of the old mythology in this particular, however little 
regard they pay to it in others, to recommend what 
they beheve to be a real moral truth, under the veil of 
a poetical illustration. But this is merely playing with 
the subject. It is dallying with the truth, not embracing 
and earnestly maintaining it. And whence does it 
appear that the philosophers had no earnest faith in a 
future retribution ? From the pertinacity with which 
they still cling, even Plato and the most spiritual among 
them, to the low and popular notion that virtue must 
certainly be adequately rewarded, vice adequately 
punished, under God's providence, even in this hfe. 
They insist on the paradox, common, I say, to the sages 
and to the vulgar of old, to the paradox necessary 
to all moral systems which deny a future retribution, 
but required least of all by that of a Plato, which in 
terms at least admits it, that the virtuous man is neces- 
sarily happy, and the vicious necessarily wretched ; 
that virtue is its own reward, and sin its own punish- 
ment ; that the tyrant on the throne is always, by 
the law and nature of things, miserable — miserable, 
at least, in comparison with the triumphant happiness 
of the good man, even in the dungeon and on the 
scaffold. So far were the heathen teachers of im- 
mortality from the feehng of St. Paul, that the Chris- 
tian saint, the man who has attained the highest pitch 
of grace and godliness, would be, in times at least of 



58 LECTURE III. 

worldly trial and persecution, were his hope bounded 
by this hfe and its recompenses, of all men most 
miserable. 

But the fact is, that it is with faint surmises and 
stammering lips only that even Plato and the most 
spiritual of his followers could enunciate the dogma of 
Immortality. Even under the humanizing sway of 
the Third Empire, amid the development of cosmopo- 
litan sentiments which that sway, as we have seen, 
engendered, the philosophers could with difficulty keep 
hold of the sense of Human Equality — of the common 
claims of all men on a common God and Father of all — 
which is essential to a stedfast and consistent view of 
so spiritual a behef It is upon the doctrine of human 
equahty in the forum of conscience, in the view of a 
retributive justice, that the conception of a real immor- 
tahty must actually rest. The philosophers, aristocrats 
as they generally were (from Plato downwards), could 
not shake off the notion of an aristocracy among souls. 
They might see, indeed, in the noblest specimens of 
humanity, some bemgs, outwardly not unhke to the rest 
of their kind, yet inwardly, as they imagined, different 
and superior, bearing a nearer kinship to Divinity itself, 
of whom they could imagine that after death they might 
be received into the bliss of the Divine Being, absorbed 
in His nature ; of whom they could not, perhaps, 
conceive it possible that, so noble, so generous, so god- 
like, they should utterly perish along with the baser 
clay around them. But such instances, m their view, 
were rare; the mass of men could not hope to attain 



STOIC COXCEPTIOX OF A FUTURE STATE. 59 

to such distinction : the difference between man and 
man seemed to them coeval with their bkth, or anterior 
to it, to lie in the very essence of their natures, as much 
as if they descended originally from various stocks. 
And when they looked around them, and observed the 
social institution of slavery ahvays like a ghost or 
shadow at their side, — the skeleton in their house, the 
death's head on their table, — ever cr^dng out for an 
explanation and a justification, and of which no ex- 
planation, no justification could be given, but the 
presumed superiority of race to race, a higher calhng 
and an ampler destiny ; — when they saw this fact, and 
were driven to this apology for its existence, no wonder 
if their ideas of immortahty were vague, imperfect, and 
precarious.^ 

At the best, then, the Stoic conception of a future 
state was of reward and glory due to some men — to a 
select class of men — to a few men perhaps in each gene- 
ration, leaders in thought or action, heroes, demigods ; 
but it left the case of the multitude wholly out of 
consideration. It maimed the whole doctrine of futiu-e 
compensation. It threw the philosopher back, against 
his will — against the tenor of his general reasoning — 
in spite of the plain inconsistency in which it involved 
him, upon the rash and crude paradox of a recompense 
here below — upon the fallacious assertion that the good 
man is necessarily happy in this life, the bad man 
necessarily miserable. It drove him to forced and 
extravagant definitions of the highest good, and the 

1 See Note M. 



60 LECTURE III. 

genuine character of virtue, and set his hand at last 
against every sensible man, and every sensible man's 
hand against him. 

To resume, then : the philosophy of the Stoics, the 
highest and hohest moral theory at the time of our 
Lord's coming — the theory which most worthily con- 
tended against the merely political religion of the day, 
the theory which opposed the purest ideas and the 
loftiest aims to the grovelling principles of a narrow 
and selfish expediency on which the frame of the 
heathen ritual rested— was the direct^ creation of the 
sense of unity and equality disseminated among the 
choicer spirits of heathen society by the results of the 
Macedonian conquest. But for that conquest it could 
hardly have existed at all. It was the philosophy of 
Plato, sublimed and harmonized by the pohtical circum- 
stances of the times. It was what Plato would have 
imagined, had he been a subject of Alexander. 

It taught nominally, at least, the equality of all God's 
children — of Greek and barbarian, of bond and free. 
It renounced the exclusive ideas of the commonwealth 
on which Plato had made shipwreck of his consistency. 
It declared that to the wise man all the world is his 
country. It was thoroughly comprehensive and cos- 
mopolitan. Instead of a political union, it preached the 
moral union of all good men — a city of true philosophers, 
a community of religious sentiment, a communion of 
saints, to be developed partly here below, but more con- 
summately in the future state of a glorified hereafter.^ 
It aspired, at least, to the doctrine of an immortal city 
1 See Note N. 



LIMITATION OF THIS THEOEY. 61 

of the soul, a providence under wliicli tliat immortality 
was to be gained, a reward for tlie good — possibly, 
but even more dubiously, a pmiisliment for the Avicked. 
So, in theory at least, it seemed to rise to the ideas of 
Christianity ; it roight seem a precursor of the Gospel, 
it might be hailed as an ally in the wars of the Holy 
Spirit: But the weakness of its support, the barrenness 
of its aUiance, became manifest on a nearer inspection.. 
For the immortality it augirred was hmited in tune to 
a certain cosmical revolution, which should close in a 
general conflagration, in which gods and men, bodies 
and souls, earth and heaven, should perish. It was 
hmited in subject ; for it was after all limited, according 
to the concurrent voice of all Grecian theory, to a 
select class — an aristocracy, as I have called it, of souls : 
those who could scale the heights of exceUence here 
might alone expect a higher exaltation hereafter ; those 
who stumbled and fell at their base, would lie there 
forgotten or perish altogether. It was limited, fiuther, 
in the nature of its promised retribution ; for generally, 
though with much fluctuation and variety of opinion, 
it was held that the only punishment of the wicked was 
the common fate of the less wortliy — annihilation. Once 
more it was hmited in its conception of God ; for its 
aspirations after Providence alternated with an appre- 
hension of Fate, which it sometimes confounded with 
the Deity, sometimes set over Him and agauist Him. 

Nevertheless, when St. Paul, standing on Mars's Hill 
at Athens, proclaimed that ' God hath made of one blood 
all nations of men,' — when, addresshig the Eomans, 



62 LECTURE III. 

he declared that ' we, being many, are one body in 
Christ, and every one members one of another,' ^ — he 
knew that in the loftiest school of Gentile philosophy 
he should strike a chord of sympathy. He recognised 
the Spirit of God brooding over the face of heathenism, 
and fructifying the spiritual element in the heart even 
of the natural man. He felt that in these human 
principles there was some faint adumbration of the 
divine, and he looked for their firmer delineation to 
the figure of that gracious Master, higher and holier 
than man, whom he contemplated in his own imagina- 
tion, and whom he was about to present to them. 
And such is the vision, such the augury, to which the 
great Augustine appeals, when in words of rude im- 
passioned energy, with which, as a vessel ploughs the 
deep with unequal plunges, he seems to fall or rise, to 
shoot forward or stagger in his career, he exclaims : ^ 
' Now, had one of his disciples asked of Plato, when he 
was teaching that Truth cannot be witnessed by the 
bodily eyes, but by the pure intellect only — that every 
soul which thereto attaches itself becomes happy and 
perfect — that there is no hindrance so great to behold- 
ing Truth as a life abandoned to sensual passions — that 
therefore we should heal and purge the soul, to con- 
template the immutable forms of things, and this beauty 
ever the same, without bounds in space, without change 
in time, in the existence of which men beheve not, 
though alone it exists and reigns ; — that all things are 
born and perish, flow away and are lost, while as far 

1 Eomans xii. 6. ^ See Note O. 



NEED OF A DIVINE TEACHER OF IMMORTALITY. 63 

as tliey do possess reality, and thereby only, they 
belong to God eternal, who creates and sustains them; 
that, among these, it is given to the soul and pure 
intelhgence only to enjoy and apprehend the contem- 
plation of eternity, and hereby to merit eternal hfe ; — 
but that when the soul is corrupted by the love for 
things created and perishable, it fades away in its vain 
imaginations, mocking forsooth at those who speak of 
a Being who is not beheld by the eye or conceived 
under sensible images, but is. seen by the mind only: — 
had, I say, at the moment when Plato was preach- 
ing ideas so lofty, one of his disciples asked of him, 
saying. Master, if one so great and godhke should ever 
appear, who should persuade men to believe in these 
things at least, even though they could not understand 
them, would you deem him worthy of divine honours? — 
Plato, I believe, would have replied, that such things 
could not be effected by man, unless the very Virtue 
and Wisdom of God should withdraw him from the 
common nature of things, and, not by human teaching, 
but by its own divine illumination, so adorn him with 
grace, so establish him in power, so exalt him in 
majesty, as that, despising all that men desire, enduring 
all they shrink from, effecting all they admire, he 
should convert mankind to this most wholesome faith, 
by the highest love and authority.' 

And there, Ecce homo ! — Behold the man ! — Jesus 
Christ, the Son of God, conceived by the Holy Ghost ; 
to whom, three Persons and one God, be ascribed, &c. 



64 



LECTURE IV. 



5>«^C 



EXPANSION OF HEATHEN BELIEF BY THE IDEAS OF ROMAN 
JURISPRUDENCE. 



GrALATlANS III. 24. 

The law was our scJioolmaster to bring us unto Christ 

Our version of this text may suggest to tlie English 
reader a notion not quite consistent with the sense 
which the Apostle's language seems really meant to 
convey. The law is here represented, not as the 
master, the teacher, the men in office and authority, 
the ^i^aa-xcty^og of the school, but as the Trai^aywyog^ 
the faithful attendant, who brought the scholar to the 
master, guiding and urging his steps, bearing his 
satchel for him, by the direction of the parent whose 
servant he was. St. Paul, speaking here directly and 
primarily to the Jewish residents in Galatia, compares 
the province of the Jewish law, the law of Moses, in 
relation to Christ, to that of the pedagogue. For its 
proper office was thus to direct and control, under a 
special appointment, the wandering steps of God's 
own children, and see that they came without fail to 



ST. Paul's view of ' the law.' 65 

the presence of the master, who was to take the place 
of their heavenly Father as the teacher and educator of 
their souls. St. Paul does not pretend that the old 
law taught the children of Israel any spiritual lessons 
itself, but merely that it brought them to the point 
at which their spiritual teaching was to begin. And 
that teaching was the discipline of Christ's holy faith. 

Such, it seems, in the Apostle's view, was the ministry 
of the law of Moses. But does he here or elsewhere 
confine his view of the law, of which he speaks so 
much in relation to its contrast or subser\^ency to the 
gospel, to the law of Moses ? When he speaks of the 
law, there is generally an ulterior object in view, just 
as, when he addresses himself directly to the Jews, he 
has generally other classes of hearers in his mind also. 

Let us regard, then, more particularly the composition 
of the congregations to which he was wont to address 
himself. We must bear in mind how closely the Jews 
of the dispersion, the men of Hebrew birth and lineage 
wdio were settled in every land and city throughout the 
East, and far into the West also, were connected with 
native proselytes — men of Greek, or Syrian, or Itahan, 
or other parentage, who had been received as converts 
into the Jewish synagogues — made in many cases Jews 
themselves by baptism, by circumcision, by abstinence, 
by fulfilhng all the requirements of the law — admitted 
not less seldom, perhaps more commonly, to a status of 
partial communion with it, without being subjected to 
its most onerous obhgations. Even among the ' Gala- 
tians ' to whom the Apostle writes — though these are 

F 



66 LECTURE IV. 

evidently for the most part genuine children of Israel, 
we cannot completely separate the Jews by birth and 
breeding from the proselytes of the gate or the proselytes 
of righteousness. The Apostle is anxious to impress 
upon them that the Jevv^ and the Gentile among them 
are both one in his sight — that the rite of circumcision 
is not requu-ed to effect complete equality in their 
spiritual privileges in Christ — that there is henceforth 
no distinction between Jew and Greek, but all who are 
baptized into Christ have put on Christ. ' And if,' he 
says, ' ye be the seed of Christ, then are ye Abraham's 
seed,' whatever your actual parentage has been, ' and 
heirs according to the promise,' — that is, to the promise 
made to Abraham that in his seed all the families of 
the earth should be blessed. Even the ' Galatians,' 
then, were a mixed congregation of Jewish and Gentile 
believers. 

The Epistles of St. Paul are all, I think, directed 
more or less to such mixed congregations (the pastoral 
Epistles, of course, excepted), and all, as coming from 
him who declared himself to be especially the Apostle 
to the Gentiles, breathe more or less the same Catholic 
spirit. But the character of this preaching most clearly 
appears from a reference to the Epistle to the Eomans. 
We may picture to ourselves the Jewish synagogue at 
Eome as crowded with devotees of Jewish, of Greek, 
and of Eoman extraction ; of Jews who had migrated 
from the land of their origin, perhaps of their birth, to 
carry on their business of various kinds in the capital of 
the empire ; of Greeks, who, like them, flocked in vast 



SYMPATHY OF HEATHENS WITH JEWS. 6? 

numbers to the same great centre of all employments, 
of all opinions and teaching, to hear and speak of every 
new thing ; of Eomans, who, after conquering and 
making tributary both Jews and Greeks, began to 
open their eyes to the wondrous gifts, intellectual and 
spiritual, of their Hebrew and Hellenic subjects, — 
to acknowledge that, with all thek" own power and 
greatness, they had much — yea, everything to learn, 
and that it was from Greece and from Palestine that 
their destined teachers had come. 

Of the sympathy, indeed, of both the Greeks and 
Eomans with the Jews at this period, history affords 
abundant evidence. The influence exercised by the 
children of Israel, in the court and in the market-place, 
over the minds and the manners of the Gentiles around 
them, was singularly strong at this period — a period of 
great intellectual and spiritual excitement ; but, strongly 
as these Jewish habits of thought now affected the 
seekers after spiritual and moral truth among the 
Gentiles, stronger still was the impulse they received 
from the first breathino' of the accents of a new revela- 
tion in Christ — a revelation within a revelation, a 
spiritual empire within a spiritual empire. The prose- 
lytes of the Jewish law, Greek and Eoman, scarcely 
yet recovered from the excitement, the intoxication, of 
finding themselves admitted to communion with a 
religion of real signs and wonders, of genuine inspira- 
tion and enlightenment from above, were suddenly 
invited to take a step further, to penetrate beyond the 
veil, to receive a higher initiation, to share in a holier 

F 2 



68 LECTUEE IV. 

covenant, and enjoy a nearer and an ampler manifesta- 
tion of God. They were called to Christ, and they 
came to Christ. The synagogues of the Law, so lately 
thronged with admiring converts from Greece and 
Eome, were again abandoned for the more private and 
retired churches, the little spiritual reunions, of the 
converts to the Gospel. The Synagogue itself was 
carried over to the Church. Even from the names of 
these earliest disciples whom the Apostle specially 
greeted, we may fairly infer, though the argument, I 
am aware, is not "conclusive, that the Church of Eome, 
the Church of St. Paul's Epistle, the Church of the first 
imperial persecution, embraced communicants from 
each of the three rival nationalities. 

In all ages of the separation the Jews have kept up 
close and active correspondence with their brethren, 
and the settler or exile on the Tiber or the Euphrates 
was made familiar with every movement, political or 
spiritual, in the city of David. And hence we may 
divine, though we cannot trace, how these people 
derived their knowledge of the ferment of religious 
convictions which was now taking place in Palestine. 
It was communicated, no doubt, through various chan- 
nels, coloured by the prejudices of various narrators, 
received in various tempers. The truth was at first 
but imperfectly understood, but partially accepted. 
The Apostle addresses converts and believers in the 
revelation of Christ, — but as men infirm in their faith, 
imperfect in their lesson, ignorant of much saving 
knowledge, as yet hardly prepared to embrace without 



WHAT ST. PAUL PEEACHED TO THE EOMANS. 69 

reserve the tidings wliicli tliey deemed too surely to 
announce the overthrow of an ancient and an gust 
rehgion. What a further pang would they feel in the 
abruptness of the announcement! Jews who had so 
lately received into their fold not a few of the choicest 
spirits among the Greeks and Eomans around them — 
men, I doubt not, of learning, women of fervour and 
godly zeal ; Jews who, expatriated from their o^vn 
conquered country, could retahate upon their conquer- 
ors with the keen gratification of a spiritual triumph ; 
Greeks and Eomans, who had swallowed the bitter pill 
of a religious abjuration — who had nerved themselves to 
renounce their national faith, national usages, national 
ideas, by which the spiritual pride of both Greek and 
Eoman was equally fostered : Jews, I say, Greeks and 
Eomans, in this hour of high-wrought feeling, were 
required suddenly to abandon together the very creed 
wdiich the one had imposed, the others had accepted, 
to bow their knees to the crucified Lord set up for their 
future Master, and acknowledge that all that appears to 
be wisdom and honour and majesty and power in the 
sight of Jew or Gentile is but foolishness with God ! 
Such were the people — and such the feehngs which 
animated them — to whom St. Paul addresses the 
Epistle to the Eomans. 

What, then, was it that he had to say unto them ? 
What was the central idea, by explaining and enforcing 
which he might hope to reconcile them to the faith he 
preached ? ' The law,' he says, ' of the spkit of life in 
Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and 



70 LECTUEE IV. 

death.' . . . 'What the law could not do, in that it was 
weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in 
the likeness of sinful flesh, . . . condemned sin in the 
flesh.' ' I delight in the law of God after the inward 
man.' ^ In these and other passages that might be 
cited, you find the same idea as that of our text, from 
Galatians — that the law is our pedagogue, leading us 
unto Christ the Master. ' The law ' is the teaching of 
the human conscience, generally — ^whether enlightened 
by a revelation given unto men through Moses and the 
prophets, or by any other less special illumination from 
above — by the habits and ideas of human society in all 
its various phases : it is every moral principle of action 
whereby we feel ourselves allowed, forbidden, or 
excused, in our dealings with men and our behaviour 
towards God. If St. Paul in the Epistle to the Eomans, 
and throughout his Epistles, points primarily to the 
contrast between the law of Moses and the law of 
Christ — making the one the preparation or pedagogue 
for the other- — not less may we trace in them the 
bolder and broader idea of a distinction between the 
law of man in general and the law of God, and the way 
in which the first leads up to and introduces the second. 
He reveals the appointment of a new law to supplant 
and supersede the older — or, more properly, to ex- 
plain, expand, and imbue it with a new spirit ; to 
vivify the letter ; to be a liberal gloss upon a rigid 
text, adapted at first under God's appointment to 
special ends and confined within narrow limits. Such 

1 Romans Adii. 2, 3 ; vii. 22. 



1 



THE FOURTH KINGDOM. 71 

was the form under which the Holy Spirit dkected the 
saving truths of the gospel to be promulgated, m the 
first instance, at Eome, to a mixed congregation of 
Greek and Eoman proselytes, asking dubiously for the 
new light which had arisen in the eastern horizon, the 
dawn of which had as yet hardly streaked the clouds 
beyond the Ionian and the Egean. 

Let us regard the text, then, in this wider sense ; that 
the law of the Eoman world, the law which ruled the 
hearts and hands of the subjects of Caesar's empke, 
Greek and Eoman, ^vas in itself a schoolmaster, or rather 
a pedagogue, leading men to Christ, to the knowledge 
and acceptance of the gospel. I -wish to show how the 
progress and development of the Eoman civil law 
assisted in the transformation of relioious ideas amono; 
the heathen, and in that conversion of the Eoman 
empire which is the subject before us. 

In my last address, I referred to Daniel's prophetic 
interpretation of the vision of the third or Macedonian 
empire. I showed the important part that empire 
had played in preparmg mankind for the reception 
of the great gospel truth of the unity of man, and the 
equality of all classes and races in the sight of God 
their Creator ; I remarked how worthy such a pohty 
must appear to become the subject of an inspired 
communication from the Author of Divine Eevelation. 

Of the announcement, similarly conveyed, in the 
same place in Scripture, of the fourth kingdom, the 
Eoman empire, a similar view may be taken — of the 
beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly, 



72 LECTURE IV. 

with, great iron teeth, which clevoLired and brake in 
pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it ; 
which, according to the interpretation of the prophet, 
should be a fourth kingdom upon the earth, diverse 
from all kingdoms, and should devour the whole earth, 
and tread it down and break it in pieces.^ 

The part performed by the Eoman empire in the 
course of rehgious history is great, and may be traced 
in many directions. I speak now of the preparation it 
made for the reception of Christian ideas in one par- 
ticular only. The Macedonian empire tended to create, 
to foster, and fix in men's minds the conviction of 
spiritual unity, by the mild influence of the Grecian 
civilization, by softening and humanizing men's manners 
after a single type ; by bidding them look to a common 
standard of art and science, of moral and social culture ; 
by diffusing a social harmony throughout the various 
races of mankind, now first brought under a common 
political organization. The character of the Eoman 
conquest was ' diverse ' from this. It is well described 
in the sacred record as devouring, breaking in pieces, 
and treading under foot. The tribes of serfs and 
barbarians might hail the Greek as a deliverer and a 
civilizer ; the same nations cowered before the Eoman 
as a tyrant and a destroyer. The union with which 
the Eoman legions threatened them was not the union 
of social quality and mutual improvement, but the 
bond of a slave to his master, of a captive to his 
enthraller. The world seemed for a moment to suc- 

1 Daniel vii. 7, 23. 



THE CIVIL LAW OF THE ROMANS. 73 

cumb without hope for the future under the yoke of 
brute force and \dolence, tearing and destroying rather 
than consohdating. Nevertheless, Providence had its 
blessed work of union to carry to its accomphshment, 
and it could use even this cruel and destroying king- 
dom for that beneficent purpose, even against its own 
apparent nature. The conquering Eoman long carried 
with him lus pecuhar law and usage, and imposed 
them upon the subject peoples ; but his conquests 
rapidly outran his power to fuse and consohdate ; 
and at last against his ^vill, in contradiction to his 
poHtical principles, in despite of his religious convic- 
tions, against every appearance and natural expectation 
both of the conqueror and the conquered, he found 
his own law and usage turned against himself, and 
that which was the narrowest and most selfish and 
most exclusive of all human codes of jurisprudence 
expanded by an unseen power and an irresistible 
tendency, tiU it became the most potent of all human 
instruments in establishing the conviction of unity and 
equahty among men. 

We have seen how strongly national and exclusive 
in its sanctions, its warnings, and its promises, was the 
character of the Eoman rehgion ; how the religious 
convictions of the great conquering race were founded 
upon the assurance of the special favour of their 
national divinities,* confirmed to them by a long suc- 
cession of national triumphs. We have seen how 
deeply this sentiment was seated, and how quickly it 
responded to the appeal of an astute or fanatical ruler. 



74 LECTUEE IV. 

Nowhere did this narrow creed and selfish sentiment 
find a plainer and more powerful expression than in 
the original constitution of the civil law. The civil 
law of the Eomans, like the canon law of Christian 
communities, was the creation of the priesthood, and 
bore a deep impression of its sacerdotal origin. It was 
founded on a religious tradition. It treated all the 
great subjects of jurisprudence — the relations of family, 
property, marriage, testaments, and contracts — as 
matters of religious import. It placed men under the 
guardianship of the national divinities ; it regarded them 
aU as means to one chief, all-engrossing end — the con- 
servation of the State, the advancement of the presumed 
designs of the special Providence which kept eternal 
watch and ward over Eome and the Eoman people. 

I cannot enter now into details, but you may remark 
how from this crude original germ, from this un- 
promising stock, this wildest of wild ohve trees, the 
primitive law of the Eoman commonwealth, of which 
even the Twelve Tables were a liberal expansion, has 
sprung by successive grafts, by additions and modi- 
fications, and glosses and commentaries — by the cast- 
ing off of the old slough or rind in one place, by the 
assimilation of new ideas in another, by growth and 
obsolescence, by corruption and renovation — sometimes, 
possibly, through caprice^ — more commonly, more re- 
gularly, more systematically, from shrewd observation 
and philosophical reflection, — has sprung, I say, the 
world-wide elastic system of jurisprudence by which 
the great Eoman empire, with aU its boundless variety 



MODIFICATION OF THE CIVIL L.\^. 75 

of races, creeds, and manners, was for ages harmo- 
niously and equitably governed ; wliich was accepted 
and ratified as an eternal possession by the same empire 
when it found itself Christian, and has been proved to 
satisfy the principles of law and justice announced by 
a rehgion which alone proclaimed and maintains as its 
foundation the unity and equality of men ; the impartial 
pro\^dence of the Deity ; the abolition of all national 
distinctions in the Divine economy ; a city of God and 
a kingdom of heaven ; finally, a jurisprudence which 
has been incorporated into the particular legal systems 
of, I suppose, every modern nation of Christendom. 

How marvellous a development is here ! We cannot 
now inqime into details ; but it will be well, for the fuU 
understanding of oiu^ argument, to point out summarily 
one or two particulars m the general process. You 
must mark, then, in pubhc law, the extension, step 
by step, through many a social disturbance, many a 
civil commotion, of tlie full rights of citizenship from 
the narrow circle of a few score of favoured families to 
the entire sphere of the free subjects of the empire — a 
secular revolution of eight hundred years ; — in private 
law, the equal commimication among various classes 
of the rights of property and dominion over the 
national soil ; the abohtion of territorial pri\dleges ; the 
readjustment, by gradual and peaceful manipulation, of 
the cadastral map of the empbe ; the relaxation, by 
slow and experimental process, of the patriarchal au- 
thority of the head of the family ; of the father over 
the son, whom at first he might punish, sell, or slay ; 



76 LECTUEE IV. 

of the husband over the wife, whom at first he re- 
ceived from her parents as the spoil of his own spear, 
and ruled as the chattel he had plundered ; of the 
master over the slave, absolute at first, final and irre- 
sponsible to law, custom, or conscience ; the gradual 
replacement of the strictly national or tribal ideas on 
these and kindred subjects by views of right, jus- 
tice, and virtue, common to mankind in general ; the 
slow but constant growth of principles of natural and 
universal law, and their apphcation, searchingly and 
thoroughly, to every subject of jurisprudence, and to 
all the dealings of man with man. 

ISTow for this gradual revolution and transformation 
of views and principles, and social institutions, various 
causes have been assigned. 

First — an opinion has found favour in many quarters, 
and has been put forward with some notes of triumph 
by our Christian apologists, that the rude selfishness of 
the Eoman law was humanized by the influence of 
Christianity only, at first unconsciously, when Christian 
sentiments were silently making an impression upon a 
world which refused to recognise them — afterwards 
openly and notoriously, when Christianity became 
enthroned on the seat of Csesar in the person of Con- 
stantine, Theodosius, and Justinian. But while we 
allow its due effect both to the avowed and the tacit 
influence of the Gospel in this matter, while we trace 
with interest and delight the softening and refining 
pressure of God's law upon human and even heathen 
society, we must acknowledge that the first impression 



THE LAW OF lYATIOXS. 77 

of ffis providential hand was given at a miicli earlier 
period ; that the law of Eome was already a pedagogue, 
leading the nations unto Christ even before Christ 
Himself had appeared in the world, and held up to its 
admiration the principles of His cathohc jurisprudence. 

Some, again, ascribe this revolution to the influence 
of philosophy, to the teaching of the Platonists and 
Stoics, to the ideas of humanity and sympathy dissemi- 
nated by the mild persuasion of the schools, when the 
rude Eoman warrior sate meekly at the feet of the 
Grecian sages. We acknowledge the fact, and we 
admit its mfluence in its season : but the relaxation we 
speak of was anterior to this. 

Once more, it has been attributed to the natural 
enhghtenment of the conscience among the Eomans 
themselves, to increased cultivation and the growth 
of moral sentiments, to the example of the ^visest and 
most liberal-minded of their own chiefs, to the sense of 
security giving more room to the play of generous and 
humane feelmgs. But neither here do I find a fiill and 
satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon before us. 

The accomit I would give of the matter connects it 
even more directly with what we may ventm^e to 
regard as God's providential guidance of human affairs. 
It was the immediate and inevitable effect of the esta- 
bhshment of that kingdom of iron, of which God in His 
prophetic Scriptm^es spoke. It was the very condition 
of victory and conquest, which bore within themselves 
the germ of this moral transformation. The httle 
fortress in the hills, in an obscure corner of Europe, was 



78 LECTUEE IV. 

predestined to grow into the widest and mightiest of 
empires, and level by its force and pressure a clear 
and ample space for the edifice of the Christian Church. 
The Providence which directed the assimilation and 
fusion of conquered clans and tribes and nations suc- 
cessively with their conquerors, decreed the inevit- 
able result — the combination and fusion in one general 
code of their several ideas of law and polity. Even 
from the first, as far as we can trace it, there existed 
this irrepressible conflict between the formal principles 
of municipal and national law- — the civil law of the Eo- 
mans, — and the principles of law, manifold and diverse, 
in force among their subjects and their chents. It was 
the same conflict wliich we have witnessed and mode- 
rated ourselves in the government of our own empire in 
India. Eoman law was adapted only for the regulation 
of Eomans dealing with Eomans. It was often impos- 
sible to apply it to the deahngs of the Eoman with the 
stranger ; it was never practicable to impose it as a rule 
for strangers deaHng with strangers. Hence practically 
three laws in force at the same time on the same spot, 
— the pure Eoman, the mixed, and the foreign : hence 
confusion, hence delay and misunderstanding : hence, in 
due course, the vague and desultory attempts of the 
strong man and the prudent man to select, to combine, 
to create a law common to all : hence the introduction 
of examples and precedents, the groping darkly for 
wide and general views ; at last, the arrival of the 
reformer and codifier, the prsetor, the proconsul, or the 
emperor. Hence, in short, the gradual conception of 



LAW A PEDAGOGUE BEINGIXG UNTO CHEIST. 79 

the idea of normal equity, of a natural and universal 
law, of a law of nations contrasted with a national law. 
Itahan and Grecian, Jew and Syrian, Heathen and 
Christian, philosopher and preacher, all contribute to 
this ultimate conclusion, and help forward the establish- 
ment of the great religious principle of the moral 
equahty of all men in the sight of a common God and 
Father, a common Euler and Judge of all.^ 

You may imagine how fiercely the pride of the 
Eoman would struggle against this conviction ; how it 
would jar against his personal sense of preeminence, 
and the solitary grandeur in which he towered above 
his fellows, — agamst liis rehgious sense of a Divme 
mission, which still abided in him, and constituted his 
last moral principle. For he, too, beheved that his 
laws and usages were given Jiim from above, that the 
favour of the heavenly powers was secured to him by 
their perpetual observance ; and every blow directed 
against them, every slm^ cast upon them, startled and 
distressed him as an act of sacrilege. But practical 
necessity not to be put by, first reconciled him to 
the transformation of his law. Use and habit satisfied 
and convinced him. The daily progress of the new 
ideas, the gradual famiharization with new principles 
of thought and conduct, with other \dews of life, of 
duty, of the ends and objects of civil society, worked 
upon his awakened conscience with the charm of a 
new inspiration. They revealed to him the idea of 
new gods, or of a new dispensation from the gods ; 

1 See Note P. 



80 LECTUEE IV. 

of a greater rule and order of affairs. They fore- 
shadowed the announcement of a new and universal 
creed. At the time of St. Paul's arrival, men of earnest 
thought and wide reflection at Eome were already 
half prepared to accept the preaching of a new revela- 
tion, and lo ! a new revelation was flashed upon them. 
Law had been as a pedagogue, bringing them to the 
Master, Christ. Philosophy had been such a pedagogue 
also. Standing sullenly on the old ways, they had felt 
the ground tremble under them — they saw the world 
drifting away from them. In spite of occasional 
reactions, of violent and forced revivals, of grim fana- 
tic ecstasies, of many a grasping and clutching at the 
shadows of a waning theology, at the altars and the 
temples, the vows and the sacrifices of antiquity, they 
were getting day by day more inured to the convic- 
tion that old things were indeed passing away ; behold ! 
all things were becoming new. 

That St. Paul was indeed well aware of this state of 
feeling at. Eome, may easily be supposed. Although 
the words of the text were addressed to the Galatians, 
the thought which underlies them would naturally 
present itself to his mind when writing to the Eomans. 
If at Ephesus or Ancyra, the Jew, the Greek, and the 
Eoman dwelt and worshipped side by side, and appre- 
hended in common the impending abrogation of the 
older law by the authority of the Gospel, still more 
did the Church at Eome collect men of all these nations 
together, and acknowledge, under the Apostle's teach- 
ing, that ' the law of the spirit of hfe in Christ Jesus 



ST. PAUL VERSED IN" ROMAN LAW. 81 

had made them free from the law of sm and death.' 
But it would seem that the Apostle of the Gentiles, the 
Eoman citizen, the man of heathen as well as of Jewish 
learning, had a special aptitude for thus shaping the 
argument of his Epistle to the Eomans. He was, I am 
persuaded, personally well versed in the principles of 
the Eoman law itself In the first place, it was natural 
that he, a citizen of Eome, though of provincial extrac- 
tion, by the admission of his forefathers to the franchise, 
should take care to inform himself of the laws which 
constituted the charter of the class he belonged to. 
Eoman citizenship was a birthright of which he was 
proud, as he seems himself to acknowledge, and which 
he cherished as the safeguard of his person and his 
property. It gave him certain privileges ; it assured 
him of protection and of freedom. He tells us as much 
himself. He appeals more than once to his rights as a 
citizen, and shows that he is Avell aware of the advan- 
tages they confer upon him. But more than this, 
there is in some parts of his teaching a direct applica- 
tion of Eoman legal principles in illustration of his 
doctrine, which none but a Eoman could be expected 
so to apply, none unless versed in Eoman law would 
be able to employ. 

Thus St. Paul dwells with emphasis on the position 
of the divine Son towards the Father, in terms which 
savour of a full appreciation of the power given to the 
parent over the child by the civil laws of Eome. His 
view of the subjection of the wife to the husband as 
her ' head,' which he uses as an apt illustration of the 

G 



82 LECTUKE IV. 

position of the Church to Christ her Lord, is conceived 
in the spirit of a Eoman rather than of a Hebrew. 
Even in his account of the mutual duties of the married 
pair, compared with that furnished us by St. Peter, we 
may trace, I think, a shade of difference : the one 
breathes the austere reserve of a Scipio or a Cato ; the 
other the tenderer gravity of Abraham, of David, or of 
Boaz. The illustration, again, of a marked doctrine 
of our religion by the forms of Testation, is such as 
might actually suggest itself to a Eoman jm-ist, but 
would not so readily occur to a mere Syrian or Jew ; 
for the notion of Testation, the technical and formal 
making of a will, with the covenant therein implied with 
the nation, and with all the rights and powers thereto 
annexed, was, in fact, almost a creation of Eoman juris- 
prudence. And once more I would remark the inter- 
esting analogy St. Paul suggests in describing our rela- 
tion as behevers to our heavenly Father, as that of sons 
by adoption. The process of legal adoption, by which the 
chosen heir became entitled, through the performance 
of certain stated ceremonies, the execution of certain 
formahties, not only to the reversion of the property, 
but to the civil status, to the bm-dens as well as the 
rights of the adopter, — became, as it were, his other self, 
one with him, identified with him ; — this, too, is a Eoman 
principle, peculiar at this time to the Eomans, unknown, 
I beheve, to the Greeks, unknown to all appearance to 
the Jews, as it certainly is not found in the legislation 
of Moses, nor mentioned anywhere as a usage among 
the children of the elder covenant. We have ourselves 



CHAEACTER OP CHEISTIAN SOCIETY AT ROME. 83 

but a faint conception of the force with wliich such an 
ilhistration would speak to one familiar with the 
Eoman practice ; how it woud serve to impress upon 
him the assurance that the adopted son of God becomes 
in a pecuhar and intimate sense one with the heavenly 
Father, one in essence and in spuit, though not in flesh 
and blood. ^ 

This subject would bear some further amphfication ; 
but our hmits to-day will not allow me to dwell longer 
upon it, and the next lecture must be devoted to 
another branch of the general argument. I will only 
ask you now to remark, in conclusion, liow instruction 
conveyed thus in language suited to the comprehension 
of Eoman citizens, of a class, at least, familiar with the 
privileges of citizenship, — whether Jews, Greeks, or 
Eomans, — whetlier at Eome or in tlie provinces, — was 
plainly addressed to the cidtivated and intelligent among 
men. St. Paul, a man himself of no mean social rank, 
and of higli intellectual culture, spoke, I cannot doubt, 
directly to the intellect as well as to the heart of men 
of refinement hke his o^vn. His converts were among 
the vfise and prudent, as well as among the impul- 
sive and devout. I reject then the notion, too hastily 
assumed, too readily accepted, from a mistaken appre- 
hension of the real dignity of the Gospel, that the 
first preaching of the faith was addressed to the lowest 
and meanest and least inteUigent, the outcasts and 
proletaries of society. Many reasons, I am convinced^ 

» See Note Q. 

G 2 



84 LECTUKE IV. 

miglit be alleged for concluding tliat it was miicli the 
reverse. As regards the Christian Church at Eome, 
at least — the direct statements of the Apostle himself — 
the evidence of existing monuments of antiquity — 
inferences of no httle strength from the records of 
secular history — and inferences not lightly to be 
rejected from the language and sentiments of contem- 
porary heathens — all tend to assure us that it embraced 
some devoted members, and attracted many anxious 
inquirers amidst the palaces of the nobles, and even in 
Caesar's household. If such be the case — if high-born 
men and women — if well-trained reasoners and thinkers 
— if patricians, and patrons, and counseUors-in-law, 
with their freedmen, their pupils, and their chents, did 
read and appreciate the Apostle's letters — did visit him 
in his bonds, and hsten to his teachings — did accept 
Gospel-truth from his hps, and ask for baptism at his 
hands ; we may fairly assume, I say among other 
motive influences, that the law, the civil law of Eome, 
protesting as it did agamst the narrow jurisprudence 
of primitive antiquity, and the political religion on 
which that jurisprudence was founded — the civil law, 
refined and modified as it was into the expression of 
universal reason on the great principles of equity and 
legal use — the civil law, in short, the image in the 
Eoman's view of the mind of God Himself — had been 
truly a pedagogue bringing men by gentle force and 
pressure to Christ the Master of Truth, and the Judge of 
Eighteousness.^ 

' See Note E. 



^ 



85 



LECTURE V. 



Dj^C 



THE HEATHEX A^YAKENED TO A SEXSE OF HIS SPIRITUAL 

DAxVGER. 



1 JoiIJ^ lY. 21. 

And this commandment have tvefrom Him, That he ivho 
loveth God love his brother also. 

We are examining tlie process Avhereby tlie selfish 
national prejudices on wliicli the heathen religions 
were founded, were gradually sapped, and the soil 
prepared for the seed of Christianity — the process 
whereby the engrossing idea of the city upon earth 
was exchanged for the anticipation of a city of God in 
heaven. We have observed how the progress of 
philosophy, of inquiry, that is, into the moral condition 
of man, led the Greeks and Eomans, in the ripeness of 
their national life, to broader views of the unity of 
man, the natural equality of races, the common bonds 
of sympathy by Avhich they are mutually connected. 
We have further traced the process by which, under 
the pressm^e of political necessities, the Eomans were 
compelled to relax the exclusive spnit of their juris- 



86 LECTURE V. 

prudence, and practically to make their city — ^what 
they learned at last with pride to denominate it — ■ 
the common city and mother of nations. 

Two great steps, then, have been taken towards the 
recognition of Christian principle : the one is the 
theoretical acknowledgment of hmnan equality in the 
sight of God — the other is the practical admission of 
men to equal rights and common franchises in relation 
one to another. 

So far have men been brought on their appointed 
march towards the stand-point of Christian revela- 
tion, which requires as the first condition of its ac- 
ceptance — as the condition of all spiritual intuition, 
and of the knowledge and love of God — the fullest 
sympathy between man and man, perfect harmony and 
concord, or, in the language of the Apostle, ' Love.' 
' Love thy neighbour as thyself,' was the golden precept 
of Jesus Christ. ' Bear ye one another's burdens, and 
so fulfil the law of Christ,'^ was the commentary of St. 
Paul, of the practical teacher who contemplated religion 
in its actual exercise, and the works by which faith is 
known among men. ' Above all things have fervent 
charity among yourselves, for charity '—that is, love — - 
' shall cover the multitude of sins,'^ was the commentary 
of St. Peter, the brave and impetuous soldier of the 
Lord. ' In this the children of God are manifest, 
and the children of the devil : whosoever doeth not 
righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not 
his brother,'^ — is the commentary of St. John, the self- 

1 Gal. vi. 2. 2 1 Peter iv. 8. ^ i John iii. 10. 



LOVE ARISIA^G FEOM THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF SIN. 87 

inquiring, self-clevoting friend of Jesus, looking beyond 
tlie outward token of works to tlie inward feeling of 
the heart. And . again and again, with redoubled 
fervour : ' Beloved, let us love one another : for love is 
of God ; and every one that loveth is born of God, and 
knoweth God.' ' God is love ; and he that dwelleth in 
love dwelleth in God, and God in him.'^ 

Now, bearing in mind these texts, and considering 
the principle of self-control and self-denial for God and 
conscience' sake which they involve — the principle of 
human sympathy springing from the love of the 
heavenly and divine, — we may see at once how far as 
yet the heathens were from the position of Christ's true 
disciples. Certain common rights of man as man have 
been hitherto acknowledged theoretically by the philo- 
sophers, and admitted as matter of political expediency 
by legislators and statesmen. Another and more im- 
portant step remains to be taken. The heart must be 
awakened, the conscience roused to a sense of duty, 
and the feelings to a sense of thankfulness for mercies 
received. Love must be given for love, sympathy to 
man in return for the sympathy of God. Man must 
come to feel that he lives under a law of charity, under 
a commandment fr-om above written on the fleshly 
tables of his heart — that he who loveth God must love 
his brother also. 

But we can hardly feel the obligation to bear one 
another's burdens, which is the law of love, until we 
have acquired the sense of a personal burden of our 

1 1 John iv. 7, 16. 



88 LECTURE V. 

ov/n, of a personal debt and duty to One who alone is 
able to bear our burdens and share our infirmities. 
We cannot exercise fervent, hearty, and zealous charity 
towards others, till we have felt the reality of sin, 
and the need of Divine charity to excuse and to cover 
it in ourselves. Therefore it is that the sense of duty 
to God comes first, and brings after it a sense of 
duty to our neighbour. And such again is the 
declaration made to us throughout the epistle of 
St. John, who begins with the recognition of God the 
Father and the divine Son Jesus Christ the righteous, 
and the sense of sin, and of duty towards Him ; and 
thence leads us on to recognise the duty of brotherly 
love : ' He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his 
brother, is in darkness even until now.' ' This com- 
mandment have w^e from Him, That he who loveth God 
love his brother also.' 

The consciousness, then, of our own sin is the first 
step to the fulfilment of the law of love. This is the 
Christian's view. Let us now examine what progress 
the heathen had made in this direction, and how far it 
had led him to the fulfilment of this commandment. 

The general impression we receive from the records 
of the New Testament is assuredly that they were 
written under a prevailing sense of human misery. 
The world seems to assume to the writers the aspect of 
a v^reck and a baffled purpose. Deep shades flit over 
the face of human society, from the uneasy possessor of 
wealth and power to the humblest occupant of the 
cottage. Sickness and infirmity of every kind are 



THE CHKISTIAX VIEW OF THE WORLD GL003.IY. 89 

brouglit painfully prominent ; the brighter scenes of 
hfe — with one or two notable exceptions — are kept 
studiously in the background. Over bodily pain and 
mental suffering of all kinds broods a vague and terrible 
apprehension of the wrath of God, and the inheritance 
of an indefinable curse. The general impression, I 
say, of hfe there depicted is one of pain, sorrow, disap- 
pointment, defeat — of the vanity of human cares, the 
nothingness of human objects, the awfolness of the 
inexphcable Present, the fearfulness of the unimaginable 
Future. We are ever reminded of the yearnings of the 
Psalmist, and are compelled to feel wdth him that it 
were better, far better — even for the best and happiest 
among us — to flee away and be at rest. Smitten with 
the gloom of these mournful records of our existence, 
we throw ourselves fervently into the feehng which 
dictated the solemn language of our Burial Service, 
when we heartily thank our heavenly Ysdhet that He 
has dehvered our departed brother from the miseries 
of this sinfnl world. Of this pain and sorrow the faith- 
ful disciples are represented as themselves experiencing 
the greatest share ; as far as this world is concerned 
they are declared to be of all men the most miserable. 
There are, indeed, outward circumstances of alarm or 
privation, of mocking and persecution even unto death, 
wdiich may seem at first sufficient to account for this ; 
but this is not all ; this is not the real foundation of 
the gloomy prospect of the world as depicted m the 
Grospel, but sin, and the knowledge and consciousness 
of sin. If sin has brought death into the world, and 



90 LECTURE V. 

the curse of sin has made the world miserable, it is the 
consciousness of this sin that has made men sensible of 
their misery, and most anxious for the means of escape 
from it, and from its curse. No man is so sensible of 
this as the Christian ; no man feels so much the 
horror and the misery ; but to him this knowledge 
brings with it the hope and anticipation of escape. 
The pain more keenly felt by him — the pain which 
colours and darkens every page of his sacred records — 
which issues in sad cries of agony from his inspired 
preachers at every crisis of their sorrowing pilgrimage 
— that pain is first sanctified, then softened, at last 
transformed into joy and peace in believing, by the 
assurance of a Eedeemer who has overcome sin and 
death, and taken away the punishment and the curse. 
For such a transformation, for such a recompense of 
suffering the heathen could not look. There was no- 
thing in the face of things around him to indicate it ; 
there was nothing in the records or legends of the past, 
nothing in the hopes and pretended prophecies of the 
future to lead him to such an aspiration. The fixed 
persuasion of the heathen was that the world was bad 
— that it had once been better, but could only become 
worse. Hints might be obscurely given, or fondly 
imagined, of a coming Euler, a divine Conqueror, a 
mysterious Eevealer of God's mil and nature ; but of a 
Sanctifier and Eedeemer, of a Conqueror of sin, an 
Assuager of pain, of an Averter of the evil which is born 
within us or gathers round us, and clings to us always 
from the cradle to the grave, and poisons life, and 



THE HEATHEN VIEW STILL MORE GLOOMY. 91 

blasts pleasure, and mortifies pride, and corrupts love, 
and makes everything desired and hoped for turn out 
other than what we had desired and hoped — of an 
Averter of this eternal immedicable evil the heathen 
had no conception, no anticipation at all.^ 

I have spoken of the sadness which pervades the 
atmosphere, so to say, of the New Testament ; deeper 
sadness, deeper because unreheved by the revelation of 
a greater gladness, pervades not less completely the 
atmosphere of secular history under the sway of 
dechning heathenism ; deeper because of the contrast 
of the inner spirit of heathen society, and the gaudy 
colours in which society invested itself, with the 
blaring noise of the trumpets and the cymbals with 
which it sought to drown its accusing conscience. St. 
Paul is sad ; St. John is pensive ; — ^but the Christian St. 
Paul is not so sad as the philosopher Seneca ; the 
Christian St. John is not so pensive as the pliilosopher 
Aurelius. For this sadness there was no rehef in the 
creed of the old mythology, there was no rehef in the 
creed of the pohtical religion. Nor w^as there any 
relief in the aspect of the times, notwithstanding the 
show of splendour which adorned it, and the grandeur 
of the position to which mankind might seem to have 
attained. 

The popular voice, mdeed, the voice of poets and 
orators and declaimers, the voice even of philosophers 
themselves, is one long and varied chant of triumph — 
of triumph over man's submission to a great conquering 

1 See Note S. 



92 LECTUEE Y. 

empire, of triumpli over nature's subjection to a great 
civilizing society, of triumph over barbarism, over the 
elements, over mind, and over matter. Caesar and 
Jove hold coequal and divided sovereignty. The 
world has become the Eoman Empire, and the Eoman 
Empire has become a palace of Art, a palace reared 
and decorated for the habitation of the human soul. 
Few and slender indeed were the conquests of the 
Eoman over material things, compared with the 
conquests on which our later age now plumes itself, 
which swell it with pride, excessive perhaps and vain- 
glorious. But his triumphs in the realm of Art may 
fairly be set against our victories in Science ; he had 
quite as much reason to boast of his intellectual 
achievements as we of ours ; and great indeed was the 
satisfaction with which he looked around on the 
creations of his power, his skill, and his imagination, 
and pronounced them very good. But in the midst of 
all this outward glory he was stricken at heart ; 
alarmed and terrified at he knew not what ; distressed 
and disconsolate, he knew not why ; ' noises as of waters 
falling down sounded about him,' — ' sad visions appeared 
unto him of heavy countenances.' ^ ' They that pro- 
mised to drive away terrors and troubles from a sick 
soul, were sick themselves of fear, worthy to be 
laughed at.' ' For wickedness, condemned of her own 
witness, is very timorous, and being pressed with con- 
science always forecasteth grievous things.' 'And 
whosoever there fell down was straitly kept, shut up 

^ Wisdom xvii. 



CHA^^GE IN THE EXPRESSION OF HEATHEN PHILOSOPHY. 93 

in a prison without iron bars.' And this because, 
according to the stern reproof of the Apostle, ' when 
they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither 
were thankful ; but became vain in their imaginations, 
and their foohsh heart was darkened. Professing 
themselves wise, they became fools . . . changing the 
truth of God into a he, and worshipping the creature 
more than the Creator.' ^ For such is the reward and 
the end of Pantheism, whether in the first century or 
in the nineteenth. 

In some of the most thoughtful spirits of those days, 
this gloomy sense of dissatisfaction vented itself in 
murmurs and rebelhons against the pubhc conduct of 
affairs, against the Government, against the Caesars. 
The contrast, half stifled, half avowed, between the 
philosophers and the empire, is a marked feature in 
the history of the times. But this was but a symptom 
of the malady, not the malady itself The malady lay 
deep in the spiritual nature of man, deep in the foun- 
dations of sentiment and conscience, in feehngs which 
are opened and explained to us by rehgion, which are 
tended, comforted, and transmuted by faith in a re- 
vealed Saviour only. 

It was from this sense, however, of depression and 
discontent with the frame of the outward world, that 
arose the remarkable change wliich now appears in the 
expression of heathen philosophy, that is, of all that could 
now be called in any spiritual sense, heathen rehgion. 



i Eom. i. 21, 22. 



94 LECTUEE V. 

We open now on an era of preaching instead of dis- 
cussion, of moral discourses, of spiritual improvement 
drawn from events and circumstances, of the analysis 
of virtues and vices, of exhortations to the one, warn- 
ings against the other. The philosopher is no longer a 
logician with an essay, nor a sophist with a declama- 
tion ; he is a master, a preacher, a confessor or direc- 
tor of souls : he is not a speculator, inquiring after 
truth, but a priest, a minister, a hierophant of the 
divine Source of truth, guiding and controlling, as with 
authority, the conscience of his disciples. He is a 
witness of God, bearing testimony to a divine law, and 
charged as it were with the cure of souls intrusted to 
his teaching. We meet no more among the masters of 
human wisdom with subtle enquiries into the opera- 
tions of the intellect ; but addresses straight to the 
heart and spirit ; advice tender or severe, remonstrances 
indignant or affectionate ; exhortations to fervent prayer 
and self-enquiry ; enticements to love and charity ; 
earnest declarations, as from a higher source of know- 
ledge, of the unity of man with man, and the common 
ties of sympathy which bind all the families of the 
earth together. Such are the topics handled in the 
pulpits of Seneca and Epictetus, of Dion and Juvenal, 
of Plutarch and Aurelius.^ 

' My friend,' says Epictetus, ' you would become a 
philosopher : then train yourself first at home and in 
silence ; examine long your temper and weigh your 

1 See Note T. 



EPICTETUS AND SENECA. 95 

powers. Study long for yourself before you preach to 
others. Plants ripen only by degrees, and you too are 
a divine plant. If you blossom before the time, the 
winter will nip you ; you will fancy yourself some 
fine one, but you are dead aheady, dead even to the 

roots Suffer yourself to ripen slowly, 

as nature prompts. Give the root time to take the 
soil, and the buds time to blossom; then nature herself 
will bear her own fruits.' 

And again : — ' Strive to heal yourself, to change 
your nature ; put not off the w^ork till to-morrow. If 
you say, To-morrow I will take heed to myself, it is just 
as though you said. To-day I will be mean, shameless, 
cowardly, passionate, malicious. See what evil you 
allow yourself by this fatal indulgence. But if it be 
good for you to be converted, and to watch with heart 
and soul over every action and desire, how much 
more is it good to do so this very moment! If it is 
expedient to-morrow, how much rather is it to-day ! 
For beginning to-day you will have more strength for 
it to-morrow, and you w^ill not be tempted to leave the 
work to the day after.' 

Or hearken to Seneca : — ' To acquire wisdom do we 
not plainly w^ant an advocate and adviser, who shall 
enjoin us contrary to the behests of common opinion ? 
No voice reaches our ears without some evil effect. . 
. . . The good wishes of our friends, the curses of 
our enemies are equally harmful to us. . . We can- 
not go straight forward ; our parents draw us aside ; 
our servants draw us aside : no man errs to his own 



96 LECTURE V. 

hurt only, but scatters his own folly round him, and 
imbibes of the folly of others. Making others worse, 
he becomes worse himself. He has learned worse 
things, and straightway he teaches worse things ; and 
thus is created the vast mass of our wickedness, by 
the accumulation of all the little wickednesses of us all. 
Oh ! may there be some guardian ever about us, to 
dispel false conceits, and recall our attention from popu- 
lar delusions ! For thou errest — thou errest,' — here 
mark the false wisdom of the heathen, — ' thou that 
thinkest that our vices are born in us ; no, they have 
come upon us, they have been thrust into us. We 
were born sound from sin, free to righteousness. Then 
let us restrain, by constant exhortations, the vain 
imaginations which ever surge around us.' 

Or to the mild Aurelius, severe to himself as no 
other heathen, indulgent as no other heathen to others: 
' Beware, my soul, of imperial habits, nor contract 
the stain of the purple. Keep yourself simple, good, 
sincere, grave, a lover of justice, a worshipper of God, 
Idncl but resolute in all your duties. Strive always to 
maintain the temper which philosophy seeks to engender. 
Fear God — protect men : life is short, and of this mortal 
life the only fruit is sanctity of temper, sympathy in 
deed. Approve yourself in all things a disciple ' — of 
w^hom ? not, alas ! of Christ, — not of a perfect and 
divine exemplar, but — ' of the best of men you have 
known, of Antonine the Pious.' 

Such is the general tone of moral teaching under the 
Empire, varying with each individual teacher. With 



EXHOETATION AXD EEMOXSTRANCE. 97 

Epictetus it is familiar and subtle ; more pompous, 
more vague, with. Dion Chrysostom ; more vehement 
and penetrating, more various in application, with 
Seneca ; more elevated again, and more tender, with. 
Aurelius. But in all there is the same general tone of 
pressing exhortation, or of hvely remonstrance ; very 
different assuredly from that of the old Grecian sages, 
of Plato and Aristotle ; more practical, more moral, 
more spiritual : addressed to the heart rather than to 
the head — to the conscience, not to the intellect of 
the disciple. But of exhortation to virtue there was 
less, inasmuch as a true exemplar of virtue was 
wantinor : there was more of remonstrance asrainst vice, 
for of instances of vice there was no lack on any side. 
This was the great defect of the heathen teaching, a 
defect for which there was no remedy among them. 
They felt themselves hoAv fruitless it was to set before 
their pupils a mere theory or abstraction of goodness, 
where there was no effectual standard of goodness to be 
shown. And so a man of great note in his day among 
them implicitly confessed, when he charged his dis- 
ciples to treat themselves as confirmed invalids in 
godlmess, nor so much as seek to attain the normal 
state of spiritual health and soundness.^ 

But what is it that has thus taught men to take this 
practical view of the scope and functions of philosophy? 
It is their growing sense of the miseries of the world ; 
of the trials and perturbations to which men are 

1 See Note U. 
H 



98 LECTURE V. 

subjected by the insufficiency of human aims, the 
weakness of human resolves ; by the opposition of 
human nature to the eternal rules of right ; by a sense, 
however faint and dubious, of sin inherent in our 
mortal being, a sense of sin and no augury of redemp- 
tion. ' Great is the conflict,' cries Seneca, ' between the 
Flesh and the Spirit.' ' this accursed Flesh ! ' is the 
exclamation of Persius. 

Accordingly Seneca rejects with vivacity the dialectic 
subtleties of the schools. Life, he feels, is too grave a 
thing to be so trifled with. ' Would you know,' he 
says, ' what it is that philosophy promises ? I answer, 
practical advice. One man is at the point of death, 
another is pinched with want ; one cannot bear his 
adverse fortune, another is wearied of prosperity ; one is 
afflicted by men, another by the gods. Why do you thus 
trifle with them ? This is no time for jesting, no place for 
grimaces. You are adjured by the miserable ! You pro- 
mised that you would bring succour to the shipwrecked, 
to the captives, to the sick, to the starving, to the con- 
demned and perishing ! Whither away then ? What are 
you doing ? The man you thus sport with is in agony. 
Help him! The lost, the dying, stretch their hands to- 
wards you ; they implore you, they cast upon you all their 
hopes and aspirations. They entreat you to draw them 
forth from such abject misery; to show them their errors, 
and enlighten their perplexities, by the bright effulgence 
of the Truth. Tell them then what nature declares to be 
necessary and what superfluous ; how easy her laws ; 
how pleasant life, and how free to those who accept 



SP[EITUAL AGONY AMONG THE EOMANS. 99 

them ; how bitter and perplexed to those who follow 
their own fancies rather.' ^ 

' wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me 
from the body of this death ? ' ^ Such is the cry at this 
same moment of the Apostle, in his address to the 
Eomans, to the behevers or inquirers collected from 
among the devoutest spirits of Eome, Gentile no less 
than Jew ; and doubtless he well knew what response 
this cry would awaken in their hearts. For to many a 
lord of a patrician palace this cry of agony would 
sound as the echo from his own walls, the echo to the 
sighs and adjurations he had himself uttered in soli- 
tude, or confided to the ears of his own private adviser, 
his domestic philosopher. For it was from no vain 
pride that the Eoman magnate furnished himself with 
a friend and director at his table, or by his couch, 
with whom to converse in the intervals of business on 
the concerns of his soul, and from whose tuition to 
imbibe his soundest lessons on the conduct of life and 
preparation for death. The highway of history is 
thronged with a gorgeous procession of figures, 
military or royal, marching on with the solemn tread 
of destiny to the accomplishment of great secular 
revolutions ; but her byways afford us many a ghmpse of 
private life and personal character and domestic usage, 
and show us men hke ourselves at every shifting of the 
scene, under various institutions, moving about on 
their affairs just as we do ourselves. And so, in the 

^ See Note V. 2 Komans vii. 24. 

H 2 



100 LECTURE V. 

byways of Eoman history at this period, we see how 
the men who had rejected as baseless and unsanctioned 
the law of Pagan morahty, became a law to themselves 
in this crisis of spiritual need, and sought to work out 
that law, not without fear and trembling. We see the 
statesman who has been doomed to execution, and 
required to submit his neck to the swordsman, or 
plunge the poniard in his own bosom, summon his 
friends, arrange the benches, invoke the aid of his 
spiritual adviser, and hivite the party to a final dis- 
cussion on the aim and purpose of human life, the real 
nature of dissolution. We see him rise from the 
debate with an affecting farewell, as one who is about 
to find in person a reply to the unsolved riddle of 
existence. Or, again, we see the sick and weary 
veteran, who has been long the victim of bodily in- 
firmity, and suffered many things of divers physicians, 
consult the director of his conscience ; shall he end at 
once all his pains by the momentary pang of a volun- 
tary death ? — his friends interceding with the sage for 
a decision which shall deter the patient from the 
irrevocable stroke, and persuade him still to bear 
the ills he has rather than fly to others that he knows 
not of. 

Such was the honour paid, such the authority as- 
cribed to these physicians of souls ; to the philosophers, 
who feehng keenly in themselves, and observing all 
around them the miseries of this showy but empty 
pageant, searching subtly into the cause from whence 
they sprang — apprehending, however faintly and 



NEW MISSION OF THE PHILOSOPHEES. 101 

vaguely, the nature and effects of sin — spent tlieir lives 
in teaching men to sympathize with theu* fellows, as all 
lying under the same inscrutable defect and baffling of 
existence. The whole world they felt to be akin to 
them, and to the world they went forth, as upon a 
holy mission, to teach and preach a message self- 
imposed, a message of love and pity, of rebuke to the 
proud, of comfort to the suffering. In earlier times 
the sages of ancient Greece — a Pythagoras, a Plato — 
made the pilgrimage of science to Ionia, to Italy, to 
Egypt, to learn from the lips of priests and eremites 
the truth embalmed in a precious tradition, or ascer- 
tained by old experience. There was no such fresh- 
ness of faith now, no such hope of moral discovery, no 
such confidence in the existence of positive truth at 
all. But the heart and conscience were awakened, and 
with narrower ends and fainter aspirations the disciple 
of the schools now glided forth, not as a searcher for 
transcendental verities, but as the preacher of practical 
philanthropy, to make men better and happier, not to 
make himself wiser. Wliile the Apostles of the Saviour 
and the elders of the Church whom they had ordained 
to the same holy mission — they who could embrace 
Paul's holy aspiration, ' I thank God through Jesus 
Christ our Lord'- — preached from land to land the 
commandment of the blessed Jesus that he who loveth 
God love his brother also — the same principle, the 
same instinct of love, the same sympathy in a common 
danger, sprang spontaneously, and without a sanction 
but that of nature, in the bosom of many a soul- 



102 LECTUKE V. 

stricken watclier of tlie wants and miseries of men. 
Christian preaching found its shadow in heathen 
preaching ; the sermons of bishops and confessors had 
their faint accompaniment in the discourses of philo- 
sophers ; an Apollonius and a Dion, and many others, 
expelled from city to city, exposed to persecution, 
threatened with death for their doctrine's sake, might 
exclaim with the Apostle, that they too had been in 
journeyings often, 4n perils of waters, in perils of 
robbers, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness 
... in weariness and painfulness ... in cold and 
nakedness.' One of them could beard the tyrant on 
his throne, in bold reproof of cruelty and oppression ; 
another could assuage the terrors of a sedition, and 
the fury of the legions, and plead the cause of the 
debased and trampled slave, and rebuke the vanity of 
the mob of Alexandria; a third would shame the 
Athenians, when they proposed to desecrate their city 
with a show of gladiators, exclaiming, 'You must first 
overthrow your venerated statue of Mercy.' ^ 

How far was this preaching of love spontaneous ? 
—how far was it caught from the tone of Christian 
preaching, which I cannot doubt was beginning in the 
second century to make impression upon the heart of 
stone of the heathen ? Who shall say ? Thus much at 
least we may accept as unquestionable, that wherever 
Christian preaching really penetrated, the greater 
ardour with which it was dehvered, the stronger assur- 

^ See Note W. 



ADVAXCE l^ HUMAXITY. ]03 

ance by wliicli it was accompanied — above all, tlie higlier 
sanction to which it appealed — gave it a force, a hfe, 
a power far beyond anything that could fall from 
mere heathen hps. But this, I think, we must admit 
— and this in carrying on the argument of these 
lectures it is important to urge — that independent 
of Christian preaching and Christian revelation, and 
of all special working of God's Holy Spirit on men's 
minds, the heathen world was at this time gravitating, 
through natural causes such as we have akeady traced, 
towards the acknowledgment of the cardinal doctrines 
of humanity which the Son of God dwelt among us in 
the flesh to illustrate, to expand, and to ratify. For it is 
not among the philosophers only, among men bound by 
their profession, as truth-seekers, to know something of 
the teaching of the Christians, that this movement of 
philanthropy is found. The alleviation of slavery by 
law and custom ; the recognition of the common rights 
of man by man ; the softening of the brutal usages of 
the amphitheatre ; the elevation of the social rank of 
women ; the increase, not perhaps of restraints upon 
vice, but of horror open and avowed at its practice 
and permission ; a greater show at least of respect for 
morahty and virtue ; a growing preparation for accept- 
ing the purer law and higher standard of God's holy 
ordinances ; a preparation, in short, for receiving at the 
hands of God's ministers, not a system of theological 
doctrine — of that I am not now speaking, I shall have 
to speak of that in its place hereafter — ^but a repubh- 
cation of the law of nature, the law of love and mutual 



104 LECTURE Y. 

consolation ; this movement, I say, in all its various 
phases, may be traced, not to the special intuition of 
the wise and prudent only, but to the sense and instinct 
of the multitude, gradually constrained, under God's 
providence, by disgust, by fear, by spiritual apprehen- 
sion, by scorn for the world, by consciousness of sin, by 
the augury of a greater curse impending.-'^ 

The empire of the heathen, the empire over mind 
and matter, the highest culture of the natural man, 
had gone forth into God's world as a brave vessel upon 
the ocean, painted and bedecked and spangled at the 
prow and at the helm, and had accomphshed half its 
voyage in pride and security. But the winds were 
now arising, the heavens were lowering ; the muttering 
of thunders was heard above the hissing and seething 
of the waters ; her masts were groaning, her planks 
were starting. Among the crew was fear and sorrow, :B 
and confusion of faces ; they felt their common danger, 
and each gave a hand to the common work ; each 
cheered his fellow with whisperings of comfort which 
he but faintly felt himself. The terror of the moment 
bound the crew, and the master, and the passengers aU 
more closely together. There is still hope, brave crew, 
there is still comfort ! In mutual help and sympathy 
your hope of safety lies. Then courage all ! — to the 
oars, to the wheel, to the pumps ! The vessel yet rides 
the storm ; all may yet be well ! Then love, and aid, 
and encourage one another, 

i See Note X, 



I 



DESTKUCTIVE SHIPWRECK IMPEXDIXG. lOo 

And here we must leave them for the present. 
Another and a wilder scene will shortly be presented to 
US — a scene of desolation and dismay and frenzy ; of 
prayer hoarsening into imprecation ; of the cutting 
away the boats, of breaking m twain the oars, of rushing 
madly to the spirit-room. They will lash themselves 
into fury ; they will quarrel, fight, and threaten to slay ; 
they will prepare to go together to the bottom, with 
fire in their brain and defiance on their lips. But 
when the Apostle w^as tost on the waves of Adiia, and 
' neither sun nor stars had for many days appeared, and 
no small tempest lay on them, and all hope that they 
should be saved was then taken fi^om them,' the 
Angel of God stood by him in the night, saying, ' God 
hath given thee all them that sail with thee.' ^ And so, 
even now in that tormented bark of heathenism, the 
Spirit of the Almighty will be present. Lo ! the crew 
is in His holy keeping ! let them but turn to Him, and 
be converted, and abide m His faith ; tliere shall be no 
loss of any man's hfe among them, ' but only of the 
ship.' 

^ Acts xxvii. 24, 



106 



LECTUEE VI 



,^^c 



EFFORTS OF THE HEATHEN TO AVERT SPIRITUAL RUIN. 



St. Mark ix. 24. 

And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said 
with tears, Lord, I believe ; help Thou mine unbelief. 

Christianity appeals to the heart as well as to the 
head, to the feelings no less than to the judgment. It 
teaches us that faith depends upon the will as much as 
upon the understanding, and therefore that it is to be 
attained by the exercise of the affections, by love and 
prayer, as well as by the exertion of thought and 
mind. This Christian paradox is illustrated by the 
famihar text above cited, ' Lord, I beheve ; help Thou 
mine unbelief ; ' a text famihar to all Christians at 
every step in their religious experience ; for the feeling 
which it indicates of the insufficiency of the intellect 
to comprehend the mysteries of God, or to retain at all 
times and under all trials its hold of a constant and 
fervent faith in the Invisible, belongs not to the mere 
novice only, not to the recent convert, not to the first 
hearer of the Truth. It belongs to all who are really 



STRUGGLE TO ATTAIN BELIEF. 107 

earnest in examining their own hearts, and jealous of a 
lapse, however transient, from the fulness of spiritual 
assurance. The text relates the occurrence of a par- 
ticular incident, but is registered for all time ; and the 
thoughts it suggests may be useful for all time, and for 
manifold situations. 

The father of the afflicted child yearns for the pro- 
mised rehef. The condition is Belief. He will believe. 
He makes an effort of the will. Hjs imagination, on 
the wings of love and prayer, transcends the limits of 
the visible and the possible. He flings himself into 
another Avorld of higher existences, and powers, and 
possibilities. He sees the man Jesus before him 
dilated to Divine proportions, and shuttmg out from 
his field of \aew the gross reahties of the world, with 
its material laws and its narrow hmits. The spirit is 
wiUing, but the flesh is weak ; the vision, the dream 
of faith, vibrates before his eyes ; the reahties of the 
world return again and again, they thrust themselves 
importunately upon him, and threaten to recover all 
their former vividness. He feels his faith yielding, his 
spirit fainting, his nerves relaxing ; and he cries out for 
help, for strength to hold on yet a little longer, for 
light to see yet a little longer ; he cries out with trem- 
bhngs that shake his strength, with tears that bhnd his 
sight, ' Lord, I believe ; help Thou mine unbelief.' 

Such were the struggles of the human conscience 
when Jesus Christ appeared in the world, and held 
forth the hopes of His heahng power to the afflicted 
and miserable both in soul and body. Such are the 



108 LECTURE VI. 

struggles, constantly repeated tlirougli all ages, when 
the knowledge of Him, and of His revelation of mercy, 
is set forth to the sinners and the spiritually-stricken 
among men ; the same struggle of the will and the 
understanding, of faith and fear, is ever going on 
among us, and is the condition of our advance in 
spiritual light and experience. 

But there was a time when the mercy of Jesus 
Christ was not yet made manifest to man ; a time 
when, though he had actually come in the flesh and 
dwelt among men, the world was not yet prepared to 
acknowledge it ; when his appearance had not yet been 
preached to all nations, and the offer of salvation 
through Him not yet generally published. Neverthe- 
less, in the first ages of Christianity, in the decline of 
heathenism, there was among those who knew not 
Christ, nor perhaps had yet heard of him, the same 
struggle going on, the same opposition between the will 
and the power to believe. There was even then, at 
least among some meek and tender spirits, a will to 
believe in something, they knew not what ; a cry for 
relief from some quarter, they knew not whence ; a 
suspicion — a hope — an assurance that there was a reve- 
lation somehow to be made, a revelation of grace and 
mercy to the spiritually afflicted, and at the same 
time an earnest wish to be helped against their own 
unbehef ; an effort, with groans and tears, against the 
deep despondency in which the absence of any visible 
object of faith had plunged them. 

The father in the narrative deeply loved his son, but 



ECLIPSE OF FAITH AMOXG THE HEATHENS. 109 

his son was afflicted mth a devil. The generation of 
decHning heathenism deeply loved the world around 
them — the brilhant cities, the joyous country, the 
temples and the forum, the baths and the festivals, 
the objects of art and luxury with which their homes 
were stored to overjQ owing, the tranquil ease, the 
leisure for study or meditation, the security of their 
long-estabhshed civilization, the treasured results of 
philosophy and science ; but the world they so loved 
was afflicted with a devil. All its pleasures appeared 
hollow and unsound ; sweet to the taste, they left a 
sting of bitterness ; its vices were flagrant, and seemed 
to call aloud for chastisement ; pain and fear had taken 
possession of it. There was something radically amiss 
with it, some defect in its constitution, which plainly 
threatened it ^^ith dissolution. The physicians had 
been consulted, but without avail. The devil had torn 
them, and driven them away. The patient had himself 
struggled feverishly against it, but it had ofttimes cast 
him into the fire, and into the waters, to destroy him ; 
he had fallen upon the ground, and wallowed foaming. 
Such is a picture of the misery of the heathen world 
at the moment of its highest outward culture ; at the 
moment when it had lost its faith in the heathen 
religions, and not yet acquired faith in Clirist ; at the 
moment when its eyes were opened to its spiritual 
destitution, and the chastened feehngs of humanity led 
it to recognise the corruption of the flesh, and the 
desperate condition of the soul that hves without God 
in the world. Anxious to find some one who could 



110 LECTURE VI. 

do anything to relieve this sickness of the world around 
them, the heathen knew not yet on whom they might 
call, and who would have compassion on them ; who 
there was who could address them with those blessed 
words, ' If thou canst believe, all things are possible to 
him that believeth.'^ 

Yet, in this anxiety and despair, the heathen sought 
out a healer for themselves. The sentiment of mercy 
and pity, of mutual sympathy, of an ever- widening 
humanity, which, as we have before seen, was gradually 
prevailing among them, the sentiment of the equahty 
of men in God's sight and of the equal claims of men 
on one another accordingly — this sentiment seemed to 
give them the first ghmpse of an idea of divine grace 
and mercy, of a law of love, of some spiritual existence 
fulfilling that idea, and itself appointing that law and 
declaring it. They felt about, as men still dazzled or 
purbhnd, for the Being invisible and inaccessible to 
whom they might appeal, to whom they might exclaim — 
in their conscious weakness and uncertainty, and amidst 
the struggles which they felt within them of the flesh 
against the spirit, of the understanding against the 
reason, of the head against the heart, and through the 
tears v^hich blinded them for the failures and vanities 
of the world, and its pomps around them — ' Lord, I 
believe ; help Thou mine unbelief.' 

To whom should they apply? How should they 
image to themselves the Being whom they longed for, 
the realization of their spiritual consciousness ? The 

' St. Mark ix. 23. 



RISE OF PEESONAL RELIGION. Ill 

Gods of tlie heatlien had lost all significance, even with 
their accustomed votaries. Mars, and Qukinus, and 
last Eome, and Victory last of all — the many names of 
one idea, the idea of a local and temporal Providence — 
had all faded from the imagination, and remained only 
palpable to the senses in their images of wood and 
stone. There was no more use for them but to hurl 
them bodily from the walls of the city upon the heads 
of the assailing barbarians. The old mythology had 
long fallen to the ground, and the temporal rehgion, the 
fiction of the magistrate, which had more recently 
replaced it, while it still stood erect in apparent strength 
and majesty, had been tried by the earnest and spiritual- 
minded, and had been found wholly wanting; dis- 
credited by its results, disproved by the event, by its 
manifest defect of spiritual energy to chasten and 
control, by the apprehension of its temporal weakness 
to shield from disaster and discomfiture. 

The civil rehgion of the Eomans, then, has virtually 
come to nought, or survives only in vague unreal 
generahties, in poetry or in rhetoric. The personifi- 
cation of the genius of the empire, the deification of the 
emperor himself, is a mere make-beheve of rehgion, a 
mere artifice or shift to save the appearance of a 
pohtical continuity. 

The place of this pohtical religion has been occupied 
by the personal hopes and fears of the individual 
worshippers. Mankind — the spiritual portion of them — 
are too really anxious, for their own conscience' sake, 
to be swayed by such phantoms of expediency. There 



112 leTctuee VI. 

is spiritual peril around them. They feel that they 
have souls to be saved. The deepening earnestness, 
the anxious spiritual excitement of the heathen world, 
as it nears the period of its absorption in Christianity, 
is a fact of solemn import. It may teach us to appre- 
hend how great was the impending revolution, how 
wide, how deep, the spiritual movement which trans- 
ferred the faith of mankind from the old to the new 
foundations. But why all this earnestness ? — why these 
spiritual apprehensions ? — whence this ever deepening 
solemnity of feehng ? The world gliding gently down 
the current of circumstance — rippling, running, rushing 
onward — yet knew not of the Magara plunge it was 
about so suddenly to take. No ! but the teaching of 
the philosophers had gradually permeated society, and 
sunk into the minds of thoughtful and earnest men ; 
the events and facts of life around them had forced on 
them a nobler view of human nature, a sense of nearer 
connection with the divine, of the independence and 
immateriality of the soul, subject to higher laws, derived 
from deeper sources, directed to grander and more endur- 
ing purposes. The baffling of worldly pride, the dashing 
of worldly hopes, the gradual closing in of the political 
curtain, commotions within and the barbarians without, 
the ghastly blankness of the aspect of the future, all deter 
men from too much brooding on the world before them, 
and direct them with feverish haste to more spiritual 
aspirations. Amid the impending wreck of civil society 
creeps in a distrust of man and man's assistance ; an 
instinctive cry of Save Thyself,' heard in the recesses of 



THE HEATHEN SEEKS GOD IN PRAYEE. 113 

the conscience, drives men to look to their personal 
interests in regard to spiritual things. There springs 
up among them a feeling of mutual repulsion, in place 
of that mutual attraction which in ages of hope and 
faith brings them from all quarters together, builds their 
cities, founds their commonwealths, and estabhshes their 
national rehgions. Common creeds are disintegrated 
and split into a thousand fragments. And ever and 
anon, in every lull of the all-absorbing tempest, pene- 
trates at hand or at a distance, the whisper of the 
Christian preaching — a still small voice, heard by 
many a heart-stricken heathen, above the song of the 
festival, and the blare of trumpets, exerting even 
over the worldly and the godless a silent, unacknow- 
ledged, disowned influence, and leading all men, more 
or less, some faster, some slower, some consciously, 
others against their will or without their knowledge, 
to a vague impression of a spiritual existence, inviting 
their faith and commanding their obedience. Viewed 
on every side there is no period of history, as it seems 
to me, when men were more in earnest about spiritual 
hopes and fears than in the third centmy of our era. 

Baulked of his carnal hopes, distrustful of all human 
aid, the natural man now sought vehemently for a 
personal connection with God. Eenouncing the idea 
of national communion with the Invisible, of personal 
protection or salvation, through the federal compact 
with his countrymen, he strove to unite his own soul to 
the spirit of the universe. He threw himself on the 
Infinite and Invisible in prayer. He cast from him the 

I 



114 LECTURE VI. 

trammels of pride and prejudice, whicli in more cheer- 
ful and frivolous days had withheld his fathers from 
the self-humiliation of the prayer of faith and devotion. 
He tore asunder the cobwebs woven by the human 
understanding, which had been wont to intrude im- 
portunately between him and the mystery of Infinite 
Power, Mercy and Grace ; and whisper that Infinite 
Power cannot undo what it once has clone. Infinite 
Mercy may not save what has been once condemned, 
Infinite Grace will not condescend to the afiections of 
poor human infirmity. True that Socrates and Plato 
had not refused to bend the knee and move the lips in 
prayer ; that devout and spiritual men of old time had 
acknowledged a truth in reason beyond the conclusion 
of the purely logical understanding ; but such masters 
as these had seemed to stand apart from the common 
nature of men ; their speculations were deemed to 
transcend the practical wants of the human soul ; 
their doctrines had been admired, and passed from 
mouth to mouth as men admire an ideal work of art, 
but were never taken to the bosom, and made the 
household possession of the multitude. Prayer had 
never been accepted as a great spiritual engine by the 
Western mind. This new and worthy conception of 
prayer, its nature, power and privileges, was Oriental, 
Syrian, and Jewish. It was through the synagogue, I 
doubt not, that this idea of prayer, of the prayer of the 
righteous man availing much, was propagated in the 
Eoman world. The synagogue of the dispersion was 
the substitute for the Temple at Jerusalem ; and the 



INFLUENCE OF THE JEWISH USE OF PRAYEK. 115 

incense of prayer, the sacrifice of the hps, replaced 
among the Jewish worshippers abroad the incense of 
myrrh and spices, and the blood of bulls and rams, 
which could be offered only in the holy place at home. 
The influence of this Jewish practice, thus stimulated, 
upon the heathen mind, can hardly perhaps be overrated. 
The Jews penetrated every rank of Eoman society. 
Their manners, their rites, their rehgious records and 
rehgious experiences, their moral and spiritual ideas ; 
worked their w^ay into the high places as well as the 
low places of Eome, and prepared a higli road for 
Christianity by refining and spirituahzing the rehgious 
instincts of the heathen. We may not be able to trace 
a direct effect of Christian teaching upon the mind of a 
Seneca ; but with the Jews and then" religious notions 
there can be no doubt that he was well acquainted ; 
and when he remarks with admiration, not unmingled 
with awe, that tlie Jews, subdued by the Eomans, had 
in turn given law^s to the conquerors, what laws could 
he mean, but the law of mind and conscience, the law 
of philosophy and religion, the law of worship and the 
law of prayer? And thus the teaching of this sage, 
and of the schools that symbohzed with him, owed 
doubtless no small portion of thek spiritual character 
to God's Eevelation of His attributes to the Jews.^ 

In the Emperor Marcus Am-elius, in the slave 
Epictetus, placed at the opposite extremes of social 
rank, we observe almost at the same moment the 

1 See Note Y. 
1 2 



116 LECTUEE VI. 

same devout attitude of thought. Both equally regard 
the received mythology as absurd and baseless, though 
they feel bound to abstain from direct attacks upon it ; 
it suffices at least to represent to them as in a parable, 
the idea of a Divine superintendence — a moral Pro- 
vidence, to which their rehgious emotions may be 
safely dkected. To this Being, this Essence, they 
address themselves, a being more obscure, more mys- 
terious than the Invisible Jehovah of the Jews, but 
accessible enough to the conscience — palpable, as it 
were, to the touch of faith — when they throw them- 
selves before Him in spirit, and seem to embrace His 
knees in the attitude of prayer. Their prayers are 
not the crude and fantastic effusions of the worshippers 
of a deity in the form and likeness of man, who regard 
their God as endued with parts and passions such as 
their own — the mere reflex of their own grovelhng 
nature, and composed of selfish appetites and unholy 
imaginations, whose aid and favour they invoke in 
every enterprise of lust or malice. They do not ex- 
claim, ' God, avenge me of my enemy ! ' They do 
not whisper, ' God, indulge my cupidity ! ' they do 
not say, ' Grant me health, wealth, or prosperity, or 
power ; ' but rather, ' Keep me from all evil desires, 
even towards those who have done me evil ; guard me 
from too fond a wish for the benefits of fortune ; 
make me resigned under calumny, content in poverty, 
cheerful in sickness.' They are well aware of all the 
subtleties by which doubt and perplexity are cast on 
our natural yearnings for prayer ; but they rest secure 



THE SPIEIT OF PKAYER HAS GOXE ABROAD. 117 

in the conviction that there is One who hears the 
prayer of faith — who approves it — who takes it up into 
Himself, and through some inscrutable agency does 
truly reply to it. They are not cowed, like the hyper- 
critical logician, by the great paradox of faith ; but 
are ready to exclaim, with the simple eagerness of the 
Christian proselyte, ' Lord, I beheve ; help Thou mine 
unbehef.' ^ 

I have cited the emperor and the slave as the two 
most conspicuous instances at this period of the inci- 
pient faith which seeks to exhale itself in prayer to a 
God unknown to it ; the most conspicuous hi our eyes, 
from their respective positions ; the most conspicuous 
also from the frequency, the fervour, the force and 
fr'eedom of their heavenward aspirations ; the nearest in 
theii' day to Christianity among the heathen. But the 
heathen world, even in its scanty remains bequeathed 
to us, abounds at this time with indications of the 
same pious yearning. The spirit of prayer has gone 
abroad, and leavens the mass of the thoughtful and 
devout among the heathen. The effusions of the philo- 
sophers answer in this respect to the preaching of the 
Christian fathers ; answer so far, that we see they belong 
to the same age : that the one in some degree reacts upon 
and tempers the other, and each is reflected by the other. 
The face is not the same, not one ; but hke, as that of 
brethren should be ; as of brethren of one family, the 
family of God. The Father recognises His children on 

» See Note Z. 



118 LECTURE VI. 

the right hand and on the left ; the child of the bond- 
woman and the child of the free woman : the minds of 
men, however separated by accidents and convention- 
ahties, are evidently working under a common in- 
fluence unto a common end. The goal, to the ken of 
angels, is already almost in sight, though men will 
still obstinately shut theu* eyes to it, and in their 
passion struggle to efface the lines of convergence 
and analogy, to deny the identity of origin and pur- 
pose, to foster repulsion and discord in the elements 
which should combine for the production of unity 
and love. 

Much yet remains to be done and suffered before 
this unity can be effected, before the absorption of 
heathen devotion in the higher and hoher devotion of 
the Christian. There are still more turns in the way, 
more faUings into error, more aversion from the hght 
of God and prostration before phantoms of the human 
imagination. There is still a dark hour, the darkest of 
the night of heathenism, to be passed, before the dawn 
of the sun of the Gospel, and the rise of true religion 
in the soul. The spirit of prayer, the yearning for 
communion with God, have been awakened ; but this 
spirit, this yearning, will surely generate error in the 
heart of the natural man, unenhghtened, unconverted, 
unsanctified by the Holy Spirit, who is God Himself. 
A new sense of religious need has been awakened, and 
straightway it creates a new superstition, a develop- 
ment of the religious sense the more curious and 
instructive as it runs parallel with the historical career 



THE NEW PLATOXISM. 119 

of Christianity, and seems to be consciously and even 
studiously opposed to it. 

Of this new religion, the rehgion of the purest and 
most spiritual-minded of the later heathens, of this 
combination of a creed and a philosophy wliich is 
known by the name of the ISTew Platonism, I have httle 
room here to speak. I would only remark upon it as a 
special, and in the West an unique example of a dogmatic 
faith evolved from the pm-e reason. A rehgion pro- 
fessedly based on the historical records of a revelation 
we can fidly understand ; a rehgion resting upon mere 
unhistorical tradition is too common to excite our 
sm-prise ; again, a philosophy which seeks for spiritual 
truths in the light of the natural reason may be a legi- 
timate effort of the human mind ; but such a philosophy 
makes no pretensions to be a rehgion. But the ]!^ew Pla- 
tonism was different from all these, for it combined with 
such a philosophy the gratuitous assertion of a dogmatic 
creed, the issue of mere caprice or guess-work. It was 
in fact the engrafting of the Oriental Mithraism upon 
the moral philosophy of the Platonists and Stoics. It 
asserted the existence of a divine hierarchy, culminat- 
ing in a supreme essence, a triple godhead involving 
Unity, Soul and Intelligence, but descending again from 
development to development, ffom emanation to emana- 
tion, through a long series of divinities, of genii, good 
or evil, opposed or in alliance — still descending till they 
touched upon the confines of humanity, and reached 
even to man upon earth ; thus not raismg man to God, 
but brinoino' God down to man. 



120 LECTURE VI. 

But with this Oriental divination of a personal god- 
head were combined the spiritual aspirations of the 
Grecian philosophy. The school of Alexandria accepted 
and sublimed the loftiest dogmas of the Stoics ; they 
held that man might also be raised upwards to God, 
even to the eminence of the absolute Being, by study 
and virtue : what reason could not acquire in know- 
ledge and spiritual power, might be revealed by 
enthusiasm or ecstasy: the individual man might lose 
himself in the contemplation of the infinite God, from 
whom he originally came, and to whom he might thus 
ultimately restore himself. 

It is not the soul, they said, that comes to know God : 
God descends into the soul ; a touch, a sympathy, a 
union ; man for a moment becomes God. Thus ecstasy 
is the ultimate term of all knowledge, the crowning of 
perfect virtue. It is to be attained by patience in well- 
doing ; by mortification of the senses ; by extinction of 
the passions ; by repudiating the flesh and the earth. 
Thus the sage or saint comes to be independent of the 
common laws of matter — he gets a foretaste of disem- 
bodied spirit — he can rise above the earth into mid-air 
— he can work miracles — he becomes a magician.^ 

This wild scheme of human religion, this last utterance 
of expiring heathenism points, it seems to me, to two 
things. First, it points to the need men evidently began 
now to feel of a personal relation to God. It was the 
completion, as far as human reason could go, of the 
efforts of the conscience to ally and unite itself with 
1 See Note A A. 



PLAGIARISM UPON GOSPEL TRUTH. 121 

God, upon whom it had thrown itself in all the energy 
of prayer. It had implored of God to reveal Himself 
to His believers. ' Lord,' it had said, 'we beheve in 
Thee, but yet we do not know Thee : help Thou our 
unbehef : reveal Thyself — make Thyself kno^vn to us — 
let us not burst in ignorance.' And then it had gone 
on to imagine and invent a God for itself. It had 
guessed a God after its own conceit. It had framed a 
rehgion out of the depths of its own awakened 
conscience ; a rehgion, not licentious, I admit, but 
rather painful and mortifying to the flesh at least, 
however it might pamper the pride of the heart ; a 
religion requiring a long and searching initiation, 
demanding trials of fortitude and patience, givmg 
glimpses of moral regeneration, promise of a remission 
of sins, hopes of a future life. 

And this leads us to the second point we have to 
notice, the evident imitation of Christianity, the con- 
scious plagiarism upon gospel truth, which marks the 
last development of religion among the heathen. It is 
sufficiently plain that the teachmg of the Christians has 
been making way in the world. Even in the increasing 
s}Tnpathy of man with man, and in the development of 
the spirit of prayer, and in the demand for communion 
with God, we might fairly infer that such an influence 
had been operating obliquely ; in the diffusion of the 
Mithraic and Gnostic superstitions, with the germs or 
shadows of Cliristian truth which they unquestionably 
embrace, we may recognise without hesitation its more 
direct and more powerful effect. 



122 LECTUEE VI. 

But if even the most spiritual among the heathen, 
permitted thus to enjoy a breath, however faint, from 
the sources of truth and knowledge, were given over 
to believe a he, to grope in a world of darkness, to 
groan under the yoke of their own wild exaggerations, 
far grosser was the lie, far blacker the darkness, far 
wilder the extravagance under which the more vulgar 
and carnal of them laboured in their efforts to hold 
communion with God. The exercise of prayer has led 
men to a nearer conception of the Deity, to a closer 
sense of the reality of His being. His presence, His 
providence. It impels them to yearn for Him, to 
draw and drag Him down, as it were, to themselves. 
What then does the heathen do ? He cannot wait for 
Him or feel for Him at a distance, he cannot address 
Him afar off, he will not brook delay or impediment, 
he must find a royal road to approach Him, he Avill 
make Him his own at once, and possess Him. He 
invents, or rather he revives, he multiplies, he exagge- 
rates long familiar methods of divination and augury. 
He dreams dreams, he observes omens, he imagines 
sights and sounds of fateful import, he fancies that he 
works wonders, and requires wonders to be worked 
for him, he surrounds himself with all the artifices and 
instruments of magic, and exults or trembles — exults 
while he trembles, and trembles even while he exults — 
in the assurance that his faith has made all things 
possible, and brought God down to him, or raised him 
perchance up to God. The age of heathen prayer and 
devotion was the antecedent to the age of Thaumaturgy 



EEVIVAL OF DIVINATIOIS" AND OEACLES. 123 

and Theurgy. The one followed, it would seem, as the 
unmediate corollary from the other. The natural man 
had discovered the necessity of a god, of a providence, 
of a moral authority and sanction, of judgment and 
retribution ; and he rushed precipitately forward to 
seize upon God, to bind Him, as it were, and secure 
the means of access to Him, and of compelling Him to 
appear at the summons of his votaries. As a ruder 
age had bound its idols to the city walls with chains of 
iron to prevent their deserting it, so the later heathens, 
more refined in their conceptions, but not more truly 
enhghtened, sought to clasp the invisible and im- 
palpable to their souls by the craft of magical incan- 
tation. The germ of a spiritual conception of God 
had been cast into the heathen world by the hands of 
Jews and Cliristians, but such was the strano^e and 
prodigious harvest it produced, when left to grow un- 
tended by the skill of the Divine husbandman. 

The impulse thus given to the practice of divination 
was accompanied by a revival of the use of oracles. 
The impostures which had died to the roots under 
the neglect of genuine unbelief, sprang up again, re- 
newed in life and vigour, amidst the cravings of super- 
stition. The misery of the present time, the prospect 
still more gloomy beyond it, seemed to impel all men 
of devout sentiment to anxious enquiries into the 
future. To the happy and contented God is love ; to 
the alarmed and miserable God is fear. To decrepit 
heathenism God was fear, dismay, and confusion of 
faces. The priests themselves, stricken with the uni- 



124 LECTURE VI. 

versal panic, swept along in the common vortex of 
despair, amidst the fall of institutions and dissolution 
of ideas, were the first victims of their own artifices. 
They demanded to qualify themselves for their mystic 
service by fasts and exercises, by strict seclusions, by a 
studied excitement of the nervous system to a pitch of 
frenzy beyond their own control. In this ecstatic state 
the prophet, self-deceived, saw incommunicable visions, 
and imagined Divine inspirations. 

We need not doubt that much of this delusion was 
perfectly genuine. They were given over to beheve 
their own hes. Worn out with fastings they saw 
visions, drugged with poisons they dreamed dreams, 
unnerved by frenzy they imagined apparitions, fluttered 
by the pulses of spiritual pride they believed that they 
were workers of miracles and prophets of the future. 
But more conscious imposture was sure to follow : for 
imposture follows fanaticism as its shadow, and avenges 
with a righteous judgment every moral extravagance. 
The impostors themselves found their Nemesis in the 
aroused curiosity of the sceptics, and the final detection 
of their organized deceit. What yet remained of reason 
in the heathen world, first staggered, then irritated, at 
last aroused to strict inquiry by the audacious attempt to 
master it, tore the veil asunder, and exposed the empty 
pretension. The records yet remain ; and alas ! that in 
these days there should again arise special reason for 
remembering and referring to them, — records, I say, 
still remain of the various forms of deception then 
currently practised, and of the exact way in which 



ANCIENT AND MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 125 

tliey were effected. We are acquainted with some, at 
least, of the expedients employed to represent the 
apparition of gods and demons and the spirits of the 
departed to the eye of the half-dehrious votary. He 
was bid to look mto a basm filled with water, the 
bottom of which had been covertly replaced with glass, 
with an opening in the floor beneath. The form for 
which he enquhed was revealed to him from below ; 
or the figure was traced mvisibly on the wall, and 
hghtly touched with a combustible composition ; a 
torch was applied, and the god or demon or spirit was 
suddenly displayed in fire. The ancients, it seems, 
could employ many of our secret agents of deceit ; 
sympathetic ink was not unknown to their adepts and 
impostors. Their conjurors and jugglers Avere to the 
fuU as skilful as ours ; and their arts were tmiied to 
account for objects far more serious than the mere 
buffoonery of the streets. It is well, even for our use 
and instruction, that those tricks were exposed at the 
time, and the record of them perpetuated. The phe- 
nomena of modern spiritualism, whatever their actual 
origin, are, I believe, an exact reproduction of the pre- 
sumed wonders of the thuxl centmy ; of an age not un- 
like our own in creduht}^, and in increduhty, in nervous 
irritability, in impatience of the grave teachings of ex- 
perience. For our age, as well as for his own, even 
the scoffer Lucian has not lived in vain. We cannot 
even yet afford to consign his banter to obhvion.^ 

1 See Note B B. 



126 LECTUEE VI. 

I have noticed how in these performances delusion 
and deceit were actually intermingled. Must we make 
allowance for the weakness of poor human nature ? 
Must we grant indulgence to its fond efforts to create a 
soul under the ribs of the spiritual death which it was 
daily dying ? Such allowance, such indulgence, I for 
one dare not claim for it. I beheve that the attempt 
was conceived in sin, as it issued in sin. God saw that 
it was sin ; sin in its perversion of the moral law ; sin 
in its veihng of the natural light of truth ; in its con- 
ceit of human power and independence. The sin was 
revealed in its results. For conjuring and necromancy 
led promptly to a cruel fanaticism ; they excited a 
fearful apprehension of the spiritual world, of the 
hideousness of the angry demons of darkness ; and to 
the most terrible expedients for baffling or appeasing 
them. An atonement of blood was demanded for a 
reconcihation with hell. Hence the revival of human 
sacrifices with which many an altar was stained ; still 
more the conviction, deliberately, entertained that it was 
only by the offering of man's best and dearest that the 
inscrutable could be discovered, and the implacable 
appeased. Behef in God, behef in a personal con- 
nection vdth God, in the possibihty of personal com- 
munion with God, led the natural man directly to the 
fearful sense of his distance from ffim, of estrange- 
ment from Him, of dread of His wrath, of despair of 
Hjs mercy. The persecution of the Christians, the 
martyrdoms of the stake and the amphitheatre, the cry 
of ' the Christians to the lions,' was one vast scheme 



SUPERIOEITT OF THE CHKISTIAXS. 127 

of liuman sacrifice for the propitiation of this averted 
Deity. Tlie persecution by Xero was an atonement for 
the burning of the city ; the persecution by Domitian 
for the destruction of the capitol ; the persecution by 
Trajan for the overthrow of Antioch by an earthquake ; 
the persecution of Aurehus for the world-wide pes- 
tilence which swept the empire with an universal 
disaster. Xot yet satisfied, not yet reHeved — nay, as 
dangers and distresses thicken around him, more 
agitated, more alarmed, more fimous than ever — the 
heathen defies the Christian to mortal combat m tlie 
latter persecutions of Decius and Diocletian ; he will 
sweep away the enemies of his gods in one hurricane 
of slaughter, or perish together with them in the im- 
pending ruin of his pohty and culture.^ 

This last revelation of cruelty and fanaticism was not 
needed to convince us of the moral superiority of the 
regenerated behever over the heathen seeker after 
truth. Wliatever be the weaknesses betrayed by the 
early Christians themselves, whatever ignorance or 
creduHty, whatever superstitious fancies, whatever ex- 
travagance in act or creed, whatever disparagement 
has been cast on Christian faith and truth by the errors 
of its early disciples, on whom the shadows of an age 
of darkness still partially lingered ; this I am bold to 
afiirm, that morally and intellectually, in heart and 
understandhig, the Christians of the empire are to 
the heathens of the empke as men of a purer blood 

1 See Note C C. 



128 LECTUEE VI. 

and a nobler spiritual lineage. In their writings, 
whatever errors we may note in them, we breathe a 
purer atmosphere ; in their actions, whatever infirmities 
we may trace in them, we discover a higher rule. 
Their society is pervaded by a new and freer spirit. 
A new principle is developed in it. Their love indeed is 
but the love of the most refined of the heathens ten times 
refined ; his sympathy infinitely expanded : but their 
faith, their behef in the being and providence of God 
— in the love and goodness of God — in the reality of 
sin and hitman corruption, mingled with the assurance 
of God's reconciliation to sinners — in the one sufiicient 
atonement by the blood of a divine victim — is a new 
principle, a new germ of rehgious life, the token of a 
genuine revelation. The fashion of the ancient world 
is perishing ; and the modern world, Avith a philosophy 
and morahty, a faith and practice of its own, is shaping 
itself out of chaos. Again the Spirit of God is moving 
upon the face of the waters : again the voice of the 
watchman on the hills is heard replying to the chal- 
lenge, ' What of the night ? ' the genesis of a new 
heaven and a new earth is commencing, with the new 
Adam for their Lord, with the Gospel for the bow of 
His covenant, with the new Jerusalem for their metro- 
polis, and the kingdom of God for their final inheritance. 
Even from the bosom of an efiete and dying society a 
new life is springing, in which the signs of health and 
vigour, of truth and soundness, are the more plainly 
revealed from the very abomination of corruption 
which is manifested around it. 



129 



LECTURE VII. 



D>«^C 



THE DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY RESPOND TO THE 
QUESTIONS OF THE HEATHENS. 



St. Matthew xxyiii. 19. 

The name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
Holy Ghost. 

We have marked the breaking down of the ancient 
mythology of the Pagans, and again of the pohtical 
rehgion which replaced it ; the diffusion among them 
of larger and more liberal conceptions of the nature 
of man, and of his relation to God ; the awakening of 
their conscience to a sense of sin, and the consequent 
straitening of the bands of human sympathy among 
them ; their yearning for access to God and commu- 
nion with him in prayer, their fuller acknowledgment 
of His Being and Providence, however disfigured it 
became by the extravagance of mystical devotion in 
the more refined, of gross superstition in the vulgar ; 
with a resort to magical arts, with self-abandonment to 
the grossest spiritual terrors, culminating in panic, 

K 



130 LECTUKE VIT. 

despair, and bloodshed. Many a mind was now ripe for 
conversion to the true God, to the reHgion which 
teaches the equahty of men in His sight, which pro- 
claims the abolition of exclusive spiritual privileges, and 
merges the city upon earth in the city of God in 
heaven ; which finally leads the sinner to the one Being 
who can forgive sin, bids him seek God in the prayer 
of an enlightened faith, entreat for reconcihation with 
Him, and accept the doctrine of the divine Atonement, 
Mediation, and Eedemption. 

While thousands day by day were going through 
this spiritual process and attaining to this blessed 
conversion, it is remarkable how meagre are the 
records of their experience which have been transmitted 
to us. We would give much for a genuine and full 
account of the heathen pilgrim's progress ' from this 
world to that which is to come.' One partial glimpse 
at such progress, and I beheve one only, is afforded us 
in a work called ' The Clementines,' which pretends to 
n[irrate the conversion of a certain Eoman named 
Clemens ; and which, though itself a fiction, is clearly a 
fiction drawn from real life in the age before us. It 
represents the mental condition of a youth, devout 
and pious by nature, harassed by inteUectual doubts, 
unsettled by the strife of conflicting opinions, longing 
for the truth, and painfully seeking it, till led at length, 
after many a pang of disappointment, to the only sure 
refuge and haven of the soul. 

' From my youth,' says Clemens, ' I was exercised 
with doubts, which had found an entrance, I know not 



THE CONVERSION OF CLEMENS. 131 

how, into my soul — " Will my being end with death ? 
and will none hereafter remember me, when infinite 
time shall whelm all things in oblivion ? . . . . When 
was the world created, and what was there before the 
world? If it has existed always, will it continue to 
exist for ever ? If it had a beginning, will it likewise 
have an end ? And after the end of the world, what 
then ? The silence of the grave ? or something else, 
some other thing of which we can form no notion ?" 
Haunted by such thoughts as these, which came I know 
not whence, I was sorely troubled in spirit. I grew 
pale, and wasted away : when I strove to drive them 
from me, they returned again and again with renewed 
and increased violence, so that I suffered greatly. I 
knew not that in these very thoughts I enjoyed a 
friendly companion, guiding me to eternal life, nor 
allowing me to rest till I found it. Then, indeed, I 
learned to pity the wretched men whom, in my ig- 
norance, I had deemed the happiest But, while 

thus perplexed and worried, I ran to the schools of the 
philosophers, hoping to find a foundation on which I 
could rest in safety. But nought could I see but the 
building up and tearing down of theories ; nought but 
endless dispute and contradiction : sometimes, for ex- 
ample, the demonstration triumphed of the soul's im- 
mortahty, and then again of its mortality. When the 
one prevailed I was happy; when the other I was 
dispirited. Thus was I tossed to and fro by contending 
arguments, and forced to the conclusion that things 
appear not as they really are, but only as they are 

K 2 



132 LECTURE VII. 

represented. I grew dizzier than ever, and sighed from 
my heart for dehverance.' 

Thus distressed, the devotee of Truth would seek 
rehef and conviction elsewhere. He would visit Egypt, 
the land of mysteries and portents, and extort from a 
necromancer the apparition of a departed spirit. Could 
such a being be presented to him, he would know for 
certain the existence of a spiritual world, the immor- 
tality of souls. No reasoning, no logical demonstration 
would thenceforth shake his abiding conviction. But 
a wiser man dissuaded him from this vain endeavour, 
and from seeking God's truth by arts which God has 
forbidden ; from sacrificing peace of conscience for 
peace of the understanding. The Providence of God 
led him at this crisis to the preaching of the Christians, 
and among them he found in a legitimate way the 
assurance of peace which he had fruitlessly sought 
amid the wanton fancies of the heathen.^ 

That assurance and peace were founded on the 
belief in certain positive dogmas, which themselves 
exactly fulfilled the conditions of faith which the 
heathen had longed for. The creed of the Church — 
the creed transmitted from the first preaching of the 
Apostles — implied in the sacred records of the Scripture 
canon — stamped with the seal of Divine inspiration ; the 
creed maintained by bishops, confessors, and martyrs, 
through three centuries of trial, and held by a firm 
concurrent tradition in the east and the west, the 

1 See Note D D. 



THE CHRISTIAN BELIEF IN GOD. 133 

north and tlie south ; the creed, finally, drawn out in 
the confession of the Nicene fathers, and ratified by 
the Spirit of God, presiding at a general council of the 
Church ; — this creed, in its three great divisions, the 
name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, 
rephed to the questions of the heathen, solved his 
doubts, showed to him the nature of God, of sin, of 
redemption, and the fact of a future judgment and 
final retribution. It laid before him the scheme of 
Divine providence, for the salvation of a lost world. 
It vindicated God's ways to man. Not answering 
every importunate question of human curiosity, it 
might satisfy at least every legitimate interest. It 
might fill him with faith in the Author of his being, 
and persuade him that with Him aU things are possible, 
that to His all-knowledge and aU-wisdom may be 
safely left every question yet unanswered. 

I. The creed opens with the assertion of the being 
of God, of one Supreme and only God, supreme over 
all powers and dominions, either in heaven or earth, 
supreme over the abstract conception of a law of fate, 
or necessity. He is the Father or Author of aU being ; 
He is the Maker of heaven and earth, and of all tilings 
that they contain, visible or invisible. He is not, as 
the heathen had imagined, merely the disposer and 
arranger, but the Maker and Creator. 'Look upon 
the heaven and the earth, and all that is therein, and 
consider that God made them of things that were not.'^ 

1 2 Mace. vii. 28. 



134 LECTUEE VII. 

Such was the gloss of the later Jewish Church upon 
the less explicit statement of the book of Genesis ; and 
such was the conviction of the Christian Church, de- 
duced from the undoubting ascription of omnipotence 
to God in the apostohc preaching, from the immea- 
surable eminence in which He is placed in the minds of 
Christ's disciples above all being and matter, existing 
before it, and outside of it, and independent of it ; — as 
when it is said of Him in Eevelations : ' Thou hast 
created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and 
were created.' ^ 

Again, there is no conflict between Him and mind ; 
no rival will, no concurrent principle of action. The 
evil m the world and the power of evil, however real 
and personal, is only a perversion, a corruption of 
the good which He originally created. It exists only by 
His sufferance, and for His designs, under such limits 
as He has put upon it. The dualism, or double 
principle of the philosophers, a reality to them, is a 
mere expression, an accommodation to human thought, 
among Christians, It is enough for the believer to 
know that his life below is a state of trial, and that 
evil is permitted for the perfecting of glory. 

Further, God is Providence, and supports and sustains 
all things by the hand of His power. He orders their 
comuig in and their going out : He keeps them in their 
appointed channel ; He leads every thought and action 
of man to the end designated in His eternal mind : He 

« Rev. iv. 11. 



1 



THE PERSO^^ALITY OF GOD. 135 

is a personal, living, and ruling Providence. He num- 
bers every hair of our heads ; to Him are known the 
motions of the stars and the measure of the sea-sands : 
not a soul is born or dies without His counting it ; not 
a sparrow falls to the ground without His noticing it. 
Words fail us, imagination itself faints in the attempt 
to realize the infinite foresic^ht and oversic^ht of Pro- 
vidence, as intellectually accepted by the Christian 
believer. The heathen disputant Celsus might pretend 
that to suppose there was one and the same God of 
the diverse nations of Europe, Asia, and Libya was 
incredible and absurd ; but to the Christian, to hmit 
this infinite sohcitude of the Almighty to the concerns 
of a single tribe or nation, to confine infinite Providence 
to the fortunes of Greece or Eome, to draw a fence of 
human interests and prejudices round His ever out- 
flowing acts of consideration and mercy, and make 
God the God of one people — a mere provincial idol — 
would be the heiglit of folly or of blasphemy. The 
Creed of Nicsea threw boldly into the world this 
first fundamental conception of a true divinity ; and 
deep was the satisfaction with wdiich it was received 
by the vexed, the wavering, the terrified schools of 
disenchanted heathenism. 

n. But again, the God of the Christian is distinct 
from any abstract law and principle of nature. Our 
Theism must not be confounded with the Pantheism of 
the Platonists and Stoics. 'Jupiter,' said the Stoics, 
' is whatever we see, by whatsoever we are moved or 
influenced.' ' God is the world, and the world is God.' 



136 LECTURE VII. 

' God is all matter, and all mind.' The last utterance 
of heathen science was the declaration of the naturahst 
Phny, after casting his eye over creation, and scanning, 
with all the Kghts of accumulated experience, the 
height and depth and breadth of the universe; that 
' the world — this heaven, as we also call it — which 
embraces all things in its vast circumference, may be 
truly regarded as itself a Deity, immense, eternal, 
never made, and never to perish.'^ Hence followed 
the inevitable deduction, missed only by those whose 
common sense was too strong for their logic, that all 
weakness and infirmity, — man himself with all his sin 
and corruption, — all nature brute and inanimate, the 
slave of man, and of creatures inferior to man, — aU, all 
is God. Evil is God ; Sin is God. This is Pantheism, 
twin-brother of Atheism. This is the end to which 
the Theism of the heathen inevitably tends : to which 
the Theism of the Christian would tend, and too 
often is found to tend, unless counteracted by the con- 
viction, real and vital, of God's personality as revealed 
in Scripture. But for this revelation of God's personahty, 
aimounced distinctly and characteristically in the incar- 
nation of Jesus Christ, the religion of the Christian 
would have run just the same vicious course as aU 
human creeds and philosophies before it ; no purity of 
morals, no holiness of ideas, no conviction of miraculous 
gifts, no assurance of an indwelhng Spirit would have 
saved it ; for all these elements may be found in more 
or less force among the heathen systems ; the salt of 

^ See Note E E. 



THE IXCARXATIOX OF THE SON OF GOD. 137 

Christianity has been the dogmatic belief in the incar- 
nation of the Divine ; in the personal manifestation of 
God ; in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Himself God 
issuing from God, and returning to Him. 

' I believe,' says the Creed, ' in Jesus Christ the Son 
of God.' The fatherhood of God extends over all 
mankind, claiming them all as His children, as all equal 
in His sight, all heu's of His promise, all partakers of 
His blessmg. But this sonship is illustrated by the 
pecuhar relation in which the divine Son is said to 
stand to the divine Father. ' V^Hien the fulness of 
time was come, God sent forth His Son . . . that we 
might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are 
sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your 
hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no 
more a servant, but a son ; and if a son, then an heir 
of God througli Christ.'^ This revelation of the sonship 
of Christ seals to us the great and fruitful truth of our 
common descent from God, and of the place we hold 
in the divine economy. ' Come out from among them, 
and be ye separate, saith the Lord . . . and I will be a 
Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, 
saith the Lord Almighty.'^ The fond notions of the 
heathens, and of the Jeivs also, of a federal compact 
between God and a peculiar people, are for ever 
extinguished. The principle which separates Chris- 
tianity from all previous forms of religion, the prin- 
ciple of its universality, is finally established. There 
can henceforth be no return to Heathenism or Judaism. 

» Gal. iv. 4-6. 2 2 Cor. vi. 17, 18. 



138 LECTUEE VII. 

Any system wliicli is evolved out of Christianity, or 
raised upon it, such, as the Mahommedan, must accept 
this principle as its own foundation. The enthusiast of 
Mecca was compelled to claim for his own inventions 
the same foundation as that which Jesus Christ had 
first assumed for God's own truth. The lurking 
heathenism in the corrupt heart even of baptized 
Christians, struggles here and there against it, and 
seeks to set up a local divinity in the persons of tutelary 
saints ; but the heart of Christianity ever protests 
against this corruption ; and the votary of the intrusive 
shrine in the corners of the temple is still fain to colour 
his pagan superstition with fallacious glosses ; he ac- 
knowledges even by his evasions that God is one, the 
Father of all, that all men are equally His sons, and 
equally under His sole undisputed guardianship. 

Further, it was ' for us men, and for our salvation,' 
that God ' came down from heaven ; ' came down into 
the world, in the person of the incarnate Son. God 
saw that sin was in the world. He knew, long before 
man had made the discovery, the sin which, as we 
liave seen, became revealed in the fulness of time to 
the conscience of the heathen world. He had prepared 
even from the beginning the means of a reconciliation 
with Him whose eyes are too pure to behold iniquity. 
Man was uneasy, terrified, stricken with despair, and 
with good reason ; his sin was greater than in the 
depth of his own self-accusation he had imagined ; the 
power of sin and the devil, the author of sin, was more 
engrossing, more constraining ; the destined retribution 



SALVATIOX THROUGH CHRIST'S LIFE AND SUFFERINGS. 139 

for sin was heavier than any human terrors had con- 
ceived of it. The consciousness of sin was the lurid re- 
flection upon the heart of the perils and sufferings of the 
world about it ; but man in his most dread alarm had not 
apprehended the horrors of the future sufferings, the 
sufferings of another world, which, when once revealed 
by God's certain word, would strike despair into the soul 
of the simier. Man demanded sacrifices, the blood of 
animals, of men, of the true believers, to avert a 
temporal retribution for the sins of which he accused 
himself; — what would he have demanded — what 
hecatomb of victims would have seemed to him suffi- 
cient to avert the spiritual punishment, the death of 
the soul, the abandonment to hell, to the blackness of 
darkness for ever — had he been fully aware of the 
estrangement in which he lay from God, of the blank 
hopelessness of his condition, as an outcast from the 
divine presence ! But Christ Jesus came down from 
heaven, dwelt upon earth, died upon the cross, was 
buried and rose, and again ascended for the salvation 
of man ; the aU-sufficient sacrifice was accomphshed ; 
man was redeemed from the power of the evil one ; his 
soul was restored in the divine image ; he was assured 
of acceptance with God, and eternal happiness in the 
bosom of his Father. Such had been the terror of 
the heathen conscience, and lo ! such again was the 
teaching of the Christian Creed. ^ Such was the 
teaching of the divine records. For it was not a mere 

> See Note F F. 



140 LECTURE VII. 

conjecture of devotees and philosophers. It was not 
the invention of sage and godly speculation. It was 
not the augury of a Plato, the yearning of an Aurelius ; 
it was not the cheerful hope of a Plutarch, or the 
pious fiction of the schools of Alexandria. Such 
liopes, such fictions we have noted and lamented in 
the restless perturbations of the heathen mind ; but we 
have seen that they led — that they could lead — to 
nothing but fond and ghastly extravagances. And 
why ? Because they had no basis of fact to rest upon ; 
no touchstone of experience to be tried by ; no record 
of history to be traced to. Christianity is history. It 
is a religion which teaches by examples ; a revelation 
stamped with the seal of accredited fact. This it is, 
or it is nothing. But this, I say, it is. And so the 
creed emphatically proclaims of it. When we recite 
the solemn words — Christ ' for us men and for our 
salvation came down from heaven . . . was made 
man . . . was crucified under Pontius Pilate, suffered 
and was buried, and the third day rose again . . . and 
ascended into heaven,' — we appeal to recorded facts, 
witnessed by men upon earth, and attested as things 
most surely known and beheved among them. We 
appeal, now as ever, to a Book, to a standing and 
abiding testimony, open to all readers, addressed to all 
hearers, upon which sixty generations of men have 
successively passed their judgments. We appeal to 
the long experience of mankind, who have weighed 
and pondered the records of this Book of books, each 



THE GOSPEL AX HISTOEICAL RECORD. 141 

according to his own light and intellectual leanings : 
who have pressed it to their hearts in faith, or criticized 
it with all the powers of the understanding ; have 
sometimes worshipped it as an idol ; sometimes in- 
quired of it as an oracle ; have again sifted it as the 
pleader sifts the testimony at the bar, and cross-ex- 
amined it with heat and acrimony, as seeking to catch 
it tripping, and extort from it evidence against itself 
And this is the result : the testimony to the truth of 
our record is admitted to be more complete, more 
varied, more consistent than to any series of events 
announced in the secular history of antiquity. No 
mere man, king or statesman or warrior of old, is so 
fully pourtrayed to us in the incidents of his career, as 
Jesus Christ in the narrative of the Gospels. ISTo 
writings on a common subject leave so little room for 
questioning their general agreement on all points of 
interest as the Gospels and Epistles ; the fidehty of 
none is more strikingly attested by fresh discoveries 
even from day to day of their minute accuracy in 
detail. They claim and they sustain the test of 
genuine history. No other account of their origin, 
however often put forward, has ever long maintained 
itself against them ; but one theory overthrows another, 
each generation launches its own extravagance, and 
each gives way to a successor. The infidel makes no 
real progress, but returns from age to age upon his 
own footsteps. Voltaire's theory of imposture is sup- 
planted by Strauss's theory of the myth ; and lo ! in 



142 LECTUEE VII. 

thirty years Strauss's theory of the myth is replaced by 
Eenan's theory of imposture. 

This Jesus Christ, thus declared, and thus proved to 
the conviction of the heathen, has ascended into Heaven. 
He has gone back to the Father, has quitted the world 
which He visited once for all. Ko ; not once for all 
only : He will come again once more ; a second advent 
remains for us. He will come — not as a Teacher or a 
Saviour, but as a Judge ; for to Him the Father hath 
committed the judgment of the world, and in the 
fulness of time He will determine the future state and 
destiny of His creatures. He will come to make a 
final separation between the good and the evil, the 
penitent and impenitent, the Church and the World. 
There will be no respect of persons then ; the heathen 
notions of merit and works will be utterly disregarded ; 
the philosophic dream of an aristocracy of souls, a 
spiritual claim to immortality confined to a few 
favourites of God, to those who can claim affinity to 
the Divine, to those who are themselves God-like, will 
be finally dissolved. Jesus Christ will know His own 
by another test — by the test of faith, fruitful in holy 
practice. The systems of the ancients will sink into the 
obscurity they justly merit ; man will breathe again, 
relieved from the incubus of terror they had cast upon 
him ; he will breathe freely in the joyful anticipation 
of a righteous judgment, according to the blessed 
revelation of the Holy One and the Just. 

ni. But when shall all this be ? There was a time, 
in the first flush of Christian faith, when the Second 



THE MISSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 143 

Coming was daily, nay hourly, expected ; when the 
behevers looked httle to the future, which seemed to 
be about so suddenly to close upon them, and fancied 
that the ministry of Jesus Christ had been but the 
beginning of the end. But time went on ; there Avas 
no sign of His appearing. Jerusalem was overthrown. 
In one sense He then appeared ; His judgment was 
made manifest upon Israel ; His Gospel was established 
on the abohtion of the law ; Christianity w^as shifted 
from its Jewish foundations, and the Gentiles were 
admitted to the promises of God. Still the end was 
not yet. ' I am A\ith you,' He had said on His de- 
parture, ' even unto the end of the world.' From day 
to day this saying assumed a deeper significance. ' I 
will not leave you comfortless ; I will send you the 
Holy Ghost to comfort you.' From age to age this 
promise demanded its confirmation. And so, in the 
fulness of time, the Church of Christ came forward 
A\dth the third great article of its creed : ' I believe in 
the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life ; who pro- 
ceedeth from the Father and the Son ; who with the 
Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified ; who 
spake by the prophets.' And thence it went on to pro- 
claim the existence of the Church as of Divine appoint- 
ment, — with all the graces and privileges which are 
divinely vouchsafed to it, — as the pillar and ground of 
truth, as the eternal witness to the faith, as having the 
spirit of knowledge, and the promise that Jesus Christ 
will be for ever with it. 

Here, then, was a substitute for the visible presence 



144 LECTURE VII. 

of Christ upon earth. Here was an answer to the 
question, When will He appear? and how shall His 
Church continue without Him.^ His visible presence 
is not required. His appearance may be indefinitely de- 
layed. His faithful disciples shall ever have the witness 
of His presence in their hearts by the indwelling of the 
Holy Spirit. The world shall ever have the witness of 
His existence in Heaven in the visible Church which 
He has founded and protects and keeps for His own for 
ever. The saints of God shall ever have the assurance 
of His power throughout the history of religion, in 
the record of the Divine operations contained in the 
Holy Scripture : for He ' spake by the prophets.* 
The Bible assures us that the Holy Spirit of God has 
from the first inspired and fashioned this record of His 
revelation of Himself; the manner, the extent of this 
inspiration is a mystery to which the human mind has 
no key ; the operations of the Holy Spirit are manifold 
and diverse ; they act more or less upon all men ; they 
tend to a Divine conclusion in all their manifestations ; 
but we know not the how or the when, the whence or 
the whither. They are compared to the wind, in- 
visible and unsearchable, which bloweth where it 
listeth. 

But so it was, that when the heathen who had 
sought in vain for a basis for his faith in the traditions 
and speculations of old, turned to the Church of Christ, 
and asked for the proofs and sanctions of its teachings, 
he was directed to a Holy Book, a book of vast anti- 
quity, of high pretensions to authority — a book which 



THE CITY OF GOD OJS" EARTH. 145 

gave a plain and intelligible account of God's dealings 
with the world— which pointed to the tokens of His 
providence running through it — which evinced design 
from one end to the other — which bespoke a unity of 
purpose, and in the highest sense a unity of authorship 
— which revealed a purer conception of God than any 
known before, a higher law, a hoher idea of rehgion — 
which sometimes in history, sometimes in prophecy, 
sometimes in the character of individual men, again in 
the waxing and waning fortunes of a people, betrayed 
a thread of continuity, a sequence, an appointment, 
such as men had yearned for and vainly imagined in 
human affairs, but had never been able fully to realize. 
The City of God took the place of the city of man, 
and overlapped it on every side ; more ancient, more 
extensive, and more enduring. The last and fondest, as 
we have seen, of the heathen religions, had been the 
belief in the divinity of Eome, of the Eoman Empire, 
of the Eoman fortunes. Through many an age of 
victory and triumph this faith had grown and flourished, 
while still implicit and unavowed. It was in the 
decline of the Pagan city that men seemed most fully 
to realize its divinity, and cling to it most passionately. 
Long did they struggle against defeats and disgraces, 
against misgiving and despair. The faith of Christ was 
already enthroned in the East ; half the empire had 
been torn away from the city of the heathen. Still the 
trembUng votary fastened upon what remained — still 
refused to hsten to the creed of Nicsea, proclaiming the 
Church of the Holy Spirit as the true city of the 



144 LECTUEE VII. 

of Christ upon earth. Here was an answer to the 
question, When will He appear? and how shall His 
Church continue without Him.^ His visible presence 
is not required. His appearance may be indefinitely de- 
layed. His faithful disciples shall ever have the witness 
of His presence in their hearts by the indwelling of the 
Holy Spirit. The world shall ever have the witness of 
His existence in Heaven in the visible Church which 
He has founded and protects and keeps for His own for 
ever. The saints of God shall ever have the assurance 
of His power throughout the history of religion, in 
the record of the Divine operations contained in the 
Holy Scripture : for He ' spake by the prophets.^ 
The Bible assures us that the Holy Spirit of God has 
from the first inspired and fashioned this record of His 
revelation of Himself; the manner, the extent of this 
inspiration is a mystery to which the human mind has 
no key ; the operations of the Holy Spirit are manifold 
and diverse ; they act more or less upon all men ; they 
tend to a Divine conclusion in all their manifestations ; 
but we know not the how or the when, the whence or 
the whither. They are compared to the wind, in- 
visible and unsearchable, which bloweth where it 
listeth. 

But so it was, that when the heathen who had 
sought in vain for a basis for his faith in the traditions 
and speculations of old, turned to the Church of Christ, 
and asked for the proofs and sanctions of its teachings, 
he was directed to a Holy Book, a book of vast anti- 
quity, of high pretensions to authority — a book which 



THE CITY OF GOD ON EARTH. 145 

gave a plain and intelligible account of God's dealings 
with the world— which pointed to the tokens of His 
providence running through it — which evinced design 
from one end to the other — which bespoke a unity of 
purpose, and in the highest sense a unity of authorship 
— which revealed a purer conception of God than any 
known before, a higher law, a hoher idea of rehgion — 
which sometimes in history, sometimes in prophecy, 
sometimes in the character of individual men, again in 
the waxing and waning fortunes of a people, betrayed 
a thread of continuity, a sequence, an appointment, 
such as men had yearned for and vainly imagined in 
human affairs, but had never been able fully to realize. 
The City of God took the place of the city of man, 
and overlapped it on every side ; more ancient, more 
extensive, and more enduring. The last and fondest, as 
we have seen, of the heathen religions, had been the 
belief in the divinity of Eome, of the Eoman Empire, 
of the Eoman fortunes. Through many an age of 
victory and triumph this faith had grown and flourished, 
while still implicit and unavowed. It was in the 
dechne of the Pagan city that men seemed most fully 
to realize its divinity, and cling to it most passionately. 
Long did they struggle against defeats and disgraces, 
against misgiving and despau*. The faith of Christ was 
already enthroned in the East ; half the empire had 
been torn away from the city of the heathen. Still the 
trembhng votary fastened upon what remained — still 
refused to hsten to the creed of Nicsea, proclaiming the 
Church of the Holy Spirit as the true city of the 



146 LECTUEE VII. 

Christians. Then at last in the fulness of time came 
the assault of Alaric and the Goths ; the crumbling of 
the walls, the conflagration in the streets ; the abomi- 
nation of desolation stood in the holy place of 
heathendom ; the temples fell, the idols were broken, 
the spell of ages was dissolved ; the Eomans ceased to 
be a nation, and Eome the national deity had no more 
worshippers for ever. 

That was the moment to make a blessed impression 
upon the mind of the heathen. Conversion was at 
hand. The hour had come, and the man was not 
wanting ; the man who should interpret and apply, 
under God's providence, the teachings of the Holy 
Spirit in Scripture. The manifestation of the City of 
God by Augustine, the explanation of God's divine 
appointments from the creation to the redemption of 
man, was a full and final appeal to the conscience of the 
inquiring heathens, the stricken and despairing votaries 
of the discredited city of the Eomans. The manifes- 
tation of the Holy Spirit of God working through all 
time, by revelations to the patriarchs, kings, and 
prophets of old, to the disciples of Jesus Christ in the 
latter days ; — the manifestation of a church or spiritual 
society, revealed to Abraham at Haran, latent in 
Egypt, wandering in the desert, mihtant in Canaan, 
triumphant in Jerusalem, captive in Babylon, oppressed 
under the Syrians and the Eomans ; sustained by 
heavenly food, by visions and inspirations, by miracles 
and portents, by God's effective stay on the right 
hand and on the left ; — of a church revived and sancti- 



THE CITY OF GOD IX HEAVEN. 147 

iied by the special revelation and ministry of Jesus, 
refined and purified, and brought ever nearer — aye, 
into actual union with God ; expanded (once more) by 
communication to the Gentiles, preached to all the 
world, established in the high places and the low 
places of the earth, tried by maHce and envy, pm^ged 
by suffering, confirmed and rooted by the storms of 
persecution, protected through every trial, and against 
all the powers of earth and hell, by a heavenly arm 
which no believer could fail to recognise ; — this mani- 
festation, I say, crowned as it was by a visible 
completion under the first of the Christian emperors, 
when the Sancta Sophia, the Holy Wisdom of God, was 
enshrined in the metropohtan temple of the empu'e — 
this manifestation established to the full behef and 
satisfaction of men the existence of a city of God upon 
earth. 

And finally, he was encouraged to believe that this 
church or city upon earth was but the type and shadow 
of the universal city of God in heaven, to which it led, 
and in which it became absorbed and mingled. The 
things that are seen became to his imagination shapes 
and patterns of the hoher things that shall hereafter 
be revealed. Such from the first was the mind of 
Scripture, the sense of the divine revelation. When 
the Psalmist proclaimed triumphantly of the city of the 
children of Israel, ' Glorious things are spoken of thee, 
city of God,' the Christian believes that he had a 
further spiritual meaning, and that the holy city on the 
hill of Zion was a type of the Church of the faithful of 

J. 2 



148 LECTURE VII. 

all ages, transfigured into an abode ' incorruptible and 
undefiled, reserved in heaven ' for them. And yet the 
two cities are so closely joined together that he could 
hardly separate one from the other in idea or in 
language. ' We are come,' he v^ould say in impetuous 
anticipation, ' we are come unto Mount Zion, and unto 
the city of the hving God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and 
to an innumerable company of angels, to the general 
assembly and church of the firstborn which are in 
heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits 
of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator 
of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, 
that speaketh better things than that of Abel.' ^ 

And there, according to the preaching of his great 
teacher Augustine, — in that abode of beatified spirits, 
the spirits of the just made perfect in life everlasting, — 
' there will true honour be denied to none deserving 
it, accorded to none undeserving. There will be true 
peace, where none will suffer harm either from himself 
or from others. The reward of righteousness will be 
He who Himself imparted righteousness, and who pro- 
mised Himself, than whom there can be no gift better 
or greater.' 

For what else has He said by His prophet : ' I will 
be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people : ' 
what else but this : ' I will be that whereby they shall 
be satisfied ; I will be all things that men righteously 
desire ; life and health, and food and abundance, glory 

. , 1 Heb. xii. 22-24. 



GOD THE END OF ALL OUR DESIRES. 149 

and lionour, and peace and all things ? ' For so is that 
rightly understood of the apostle ; ' that God may be 
all in all.' He wiU be the end of all our desires, who 
wiU be seen Himself without end, will be loved without 
satiety, will be praised without weariness. This affec- 
tion, this business, this function of our being mil be 
common to us all, hke hfe itself everlasting.' ^ 

1 See Note GG. 



150 



LECTUEE VIIL 



THE GODLY EXAMPLE OF THE CHEISTIANS COMPLETES 
THE CONVEESION OF THE EMPIRE. 



Acts xvii. 6. 

These that have turned the world upside down are come 

hither also, 

I SHOWED in the last Lecture how the dogmas of the 
Christian Church, set forth by the council of Mcsea, 
rephed to the most urgent questions of the heathen on 
spiritual matters, and offered to them assurance and 
repose from intellectual perplexity. 

What then remained that they should not be con- 
verted and baptized into the faith of Christ ? Their old 
gods had failed them, and lo ! a new divinity was pre- 
sented and recommended to them. There remained 
that which must always remain at the bottom of all 
religious questions, that condition of fuU belief and 
acceptance which no reasonableness of doctrine, no 
harmony of system, no hohness of moral precept can 
alone fulfil ; — the tender and yearning soul of the 



i 



THE ASPECT OF CHEISTIAN SOCIETY. 151 

devout inquirer still requires the satisfaction of his 
heart and conscience ; he demands to follow the doc- 
trines in their results, to scan the precepts in their 
effects, to observe the religion in action ; to know how 
the professed revelation of God's will works practically 
in the world. He wants to trace the operation of 
inspired truth upon the heart and soul of the behever, 
and above all upon His own soul by personal expe- 
rience. He must know and feel the beauty of true 
holiness, and learn where to find it, and how to attach 
it to himself as an eternal possession. He must com- 
prehend the spirit of that saying of the Apostle : ' Who- 
soever shall confess that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, 
God dwelleth in him, and he in God.' ^ 

On brmging to a close the partial survey we have 
taken of the conversion of the Empire to Christ, we 
must now glance at the aspect of Christian society, as 
it presented itself to the view of the still dubious and 
hesitating heathen. The men who had tiu-ned the 
world upside down had come to him, had found him 
out, wherever he was, in the stronghold of his rehgion, 
of his philosophy, of his pride, of his indifference. 
They had come to him, and their importunity allowed 
him no rest. Who and what manner of men were 
they? 

Now, we read in the 17th chapter of the Acts of the 
Apostles, that when Paul and Silas crossed over from 
Asia into Europe, and preached the Gospel in Thes- 

^ 1 John iv. 15. 



152 LECTUEE VIII. 

salonica, the first great city on this side of the Helles- 
pont — and when some of those which consorted with 
them beheved — the Jews there residing, moved with 
envy, gathered a company, made a tumult, drew some 
of the brethren before the heathen rulers, crying, 
' These that have turned the world upside down are 
come hither also. And these,' they continued, ' all do 
contrary to the decrees of Csesar, saying that there is 
another king, one Jesus.' 

To those who look back upon the history of Chris- 
tianity, what irony appears in this passage! How 
peevish an exaggeration seems this cry in the mouth of 
those who uttered it ! How little had the preachers 
of the Gospel yet done ! How far were they from 
turning the world upside down — from overthrowing 
the beliefs of the time, from upsetting the deep-rooted 
system of rehgious domination ; from unhinging the 
conscience of the heathen world, even of that Eastern 
world, the world of ancient creeds and philosophies, 
from whence they had come ' hither,' to the West, to 
make their first assault on the stedfast pohties of 
Europe. What had they accomphshed hitherto ? In 
a few cities of Asia they had impugned the national 
behef of a handful of Jewish residents. In Jerusalem, 
the home of the Jewish people and the Jewish creed, 
their Founder had suffered death for His temerity, their 
preaching had been forbidden, they had been im- 
prisoned, scourged, threatened with death, one or more 
of their number had been stoned or beheaded ; their 
doctrines were scorned, their manners and practices 



THE GOSPEL REJECTED AXD MALIGNED. 153 

maligned. Sucli success as they obtained was limited 
to alarming the consciences of a few only, and those 
mostly of the lower sort, among the Jews, and casting 
into the minds of speculative thinkers some germ of 
doubt and suspicion of the will of Jehovah to save 
Israel from her sins, and restore her pohtical indepen- 
dence. They had scattered here and there the seeds 
of a spiritual interpretation of prophecy, and had led 
one man or another to look for a spiritual realization 
of their long-treasured promises of a new heaven and 
a new earth, and a king from the loins of David, 
namely one Jesus, a Saviour and Eedeemer of souls. 

This was all they had yet effected, as far as human 
vision could penetrate ! And how had they been re- 
quited ? Wherever they had presented themselves with 
the words of love and wisdom, they had been met with 
insult and violence by the Je^vish residents in heathen 
cities ; the feehngs of the natives had been prejudiced 
against them, they had been overborne with clamour, 
the arm of the magistrate had been invoked to punish 
them for the tumults insolently raised by their oppo- 
nents. They had been driven fi^om one city to flee to 
the next. Xever, surely, was there a charge more 
grossly behed by the fact than this, at this time made 
against them, that they had turned the world upside 
down. They had only cast off its dust from their feet. 
Nor more true was the fiuther charge, more insidious, 
more invidious, appended to it, that they ' did contrary 
to the decrees of Csesar, saying that there was anot^ 
king, one Jesus.' 



154 LECTURE VIII. 

Yet there was something strangely prophetic in these 
charges. Far as they were from the truth at the time, 
an era was coming when they might truly be alleged. 
At the era of the council of Mcsea it was indeed true 
that the Christians had, to use a figure well understood, 
' turned the world upside down ; ' that they had pro- 
claimed another king, another polity, a temporal rule 
under a new sanction ; that the whole framework of 
the heathen state was overthrown through their 
preaching, and a new city estabhshed, the law of which 
was God's law, the faith of which was God's truth, the 
chief of which received his unction from the Holy One, 
and bowed his knee to Jesus, as King of kings and Lord 
of lords. 

What manner of men, then, it might fairly now be 
asked, were these who had thus turned the world upside 
down ? What was the law and rule of life through 
which they had done such great things ? 

It was none other but this, as declared of old by the 
Apostle : 

' This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that 
ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the 
vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, 
being ahenated from the life of God through the 
ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of 
their heart : who being past feehng have given them- 
selves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness 
with greediness. But ye have not so learned Christ ; 
if so be that ye have been taught by Him, as the 
truth is in Jesus : that ye put off concerning the former 



THE MOEAL EXAMPLE OF THE CHRISTIANS. 155 

conversation the old man, wMch is corrupt according 
to the deceitful lusts ; and be renewed in the spirit of 
your mmd ; and that ye put on the new man, which 
after God is created in righteousness and true hohness.' 
. . . . And so after practical exhortations to divers 
acts of holy living — ' Be ye kind one to another, 
forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake 
hath forgiven you.' ^ 

And how were the Christians seen to carry out this 
divine morahty ? The Apologists may answer ; Justin 
and Tertullian and the rest ; who writing on the spur 
of actual exigency, replied to the current calumnies of 
the day, and retorted upon the slanderers of the Chris- 
tian Church with truths manifest to all, and which 
could not be gainsaid. The hves of the behevers were 
for the most part exemplary amidst the seethhig cor- 
ruption of the times. The heathens, whose conscience, 
as we have seen, was roused to feel the enormity of 
their own conduct, and of the familiar vices which had 
become ingrained in them, but who had not coiu-age 
or constancy to reform themselves, to expel the devil 
who had taken possession of thek own hearts, might 
behold in the Christians the example and pattern which 
they sighed for. They remarked among them sobriety 
in the midst of moral and sensual intoxication ; chastity 
in the midst of flagrant and allowed hcentiousness ; 
good faith, where to betray a trust and deny a deposit 
was the rule and habit of society ; forbearance, where 

1 Ephes. iv. 17-24, 32. 



156 LECTUEE VIII. 

hate and vengeance were commonly approved and 
sanctioned ; kindness and charity one towards another ; 
almsgiving and collecting for the necessities of the 
saints ; tending in sickness, even to the foundation of 
charitable hospitals, an institution unknown to the 
selfishness of the heathens ; redeeming of captives ; 
burying of the dead ; courage in the midst of pestilence 
and contagion ; the fostering care of the community 
extended to the infants and the aged ; regard for the 
sanctity of human hfe, as the image of the source and 
parent of all life ; love to man as the child of Grod the 
Father. And more particularly they might remark that 
parental affection, too often violated in those selfish 
days, which shrank with horror from the custom of 
exposing children, and devoted itself with resolution 
and industry to the task of providing for the pledge of 
God's love in marriage, instead of fleeing basely from 
the burden imposed by it. And further, the heathen 
might remark with admiration the firmness of the 
brethren m relinquishing many modes of profitable 
employment which were deemed incompatible with the 
Christian profession ; their boldness in the confession 
of their faith in the face of the persecutors ; in refusing 
compliance with the forms and usages of the heathen 
rehgion, with the demand to sacrifice to idols, to swear 
by the name of the Emperor, to wear the chaplet of 
the triumphant soldier, to bear the banner of the 
Pagan army. And finally, they might regard with awe 
the patience of the Christian martyrs ; their constancy 
under torments, their self-devotion unto death, then 
implicit rehance on the spiritual promises of theii 



THE CAKE OF CHRISTIAN MORALITY. 157 

Master, who seemed even in death and torments to un- 
part to them a portion of His own divine endurance.^ 

Such was the outward bearing of the individual 
Christian, such the character of his society, patent to 
the observation of the incredulous world around it. 

And such the heathen, proud and incredulous as he 
was, himself acknowledged it, in the well-known letter 
of Pliny, — the first Christian apology, as it has been 
called ; when with every wish to find reasonable ground 
for the complaints advanced agamst the Christians, he 
could on the strictest inquiry discover none ; when the 
slanders of the wicked resolved tliemselves on examina- 
tion into a confession of their innocence, and the curse 
was changed into a blessing. They used, it was found, 
to meet together on certain days ; they joined in a hymn 
of praise to Christ their God ; they bound one another, 
not to the commission of any crime, but to refrain 
from theft, from adultery, to keep theu* promises and 
hold their pledges sacred ; they partook of a simple 
meal in common, a meal of charity and sobriety. And 
hence the crowning eulogium which another heathen 
was constrained to pass upon them : ' See how these 
Christians love one another.' 

Nor were these outward tokens of pmdty and 
holiness merely casual and variable. The heathen 
indeed might judge them by the signs which were 
apparent only, by outward phenomena ; but the 
Christian knew the law by which these phenomena 
were regulated. The Christian could appeal to rules 

» See Note 1 1. 



160 LECTURE VIII. 

tlie Christian rule and theory — could not fail to see 
in this belief thus publicly avowed — in the vows 
of holiness by which it was accompanied thus publicly 
ratified — in this sacramental act of faith and obedience, 
so congenial to its own spiritual aspirations, thus from 
age to age continued and repeated — an assurance that 
the obhgations thereby imposed were not lightly under- 
taken, and would by none be lightly disregarded. 

The sacraments, then, of the Christian Church were 
a pledge to the heathen of the sincerity and trust- 
worthiness of the Christian votaries. When the 
heathen beheld or heard speak of them he began to 
know something of the men who had turned the 
world upside down, who had put faith in the place 
of materialism, hope in the place of desperation, love 
in the place of selfish and sensual corruption — and 
how they had done so, and why they had done so. 
He felt, moreover, the assurance that they would 
persevere, and continue to do so more and more unto 
the end. 

The core of their whole system was plainly the 
belief in Christ's personality. This it was that gave 
strength, cohesion, and permanence to the whole fabric 
of Christian faith and practice. In Holy Scripture the 
believer read of the Lord Jesus as the author and 
finisher of his faith ; in every office of the Church he 
recognised Him as the great object of his worship ; 
every sermon spoke of Him, every hymn was addressed 
to Him, every prayer was made through Him. He 
was the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. He was a 



COMMUNION WITH GOD. 161 

perfect model of holy living ; a perfect example of all 
goodness. The Christian could turn from the abstract 
conception of virtue recommended by the cold rhetoric 
of the philosophers, to the incarnation of all virtue in 
the life and practice of the blessed Jesus. And when 
he was dazzled by such brilHancy, when he fainted in 
spirit at the contemplation of so inimitable a pattern, 
wlien his head swam with sickness at the thought of 
his own weakness and insufficiency, he w^as invited to 
come week by week, day by day, to the commemora- 
tion of the one sufficient sacrifice, to the holy com- 
munion of the faithful with one another, and with Him 
of whom they all spiritually partook and were strength- 
ened. In their hearts this Jesus the Eedeemer, with 
His Spirit the Sanctifier, was gloriously enthroned. 
They acknowledged by this act of obedience the king- 
ship and rule which He exercised over them. They 
beheved that He had all authority over men's souls 
given to Him of the Father. They caUed Him their 
king, and themselves His people. Of His kingdom 
there should be no end : of the glory which they 
should inherit in communion with Him in heaven, 
far above all the powers and principahties of the 
Gentile world, there should be no limit in time or 
etenhty, — no defect in its circle, no shadow on its 
brightness. 

They knew, and therefore they believed. They did not 
need tlie upsetting of the domination of the world to 
convince them of their future rule and glory with Him. 
To the last moment,— to the day of the battle of the 

M 



1G2 LECTUEE VIII. 

Milvian bridge and the whelming of their last per- 
secutor in the waters, — to the eve of the Decree of 
of Milan, and the estabhshment of their Church in 
security and honour, — they dreamt not of the fall of the 
heathen empire upon earth ; and when it came, their 
first thought was that the frame of human society was 
loosened, and about to fall utterly in pieces. To the 
last they expected no conversion of Caesar unto Christ ; 
no setting up of a Christian emperor over the nations of 
the world. ' God,' said TertuUian, ' would long since 
have converted Csesar to His faith, if the world could 
have existed without the Csesar, or Christians, could 
have been Cassars themselves.'^ The heathens them- 
selves were not more perplexed by the conversion of 
Constantme than the Christians. The Church was 
taken by surprise, — it was put out in its calculations,— 
confined in its prospects, — baffled, I beheve, in some 
of its dearest and most spiritual anticipations. This 
event threw back the near-expected millennium into the 
inimitable future. The poHtical establishment of the 
Church of Christ proved no unmixed good to the faith 
of Christ; and doubtless there were many good 
Christians who regarded it with pious apprehension. 
So far were the behevers from wilfully setting up 
another C^sar in Jesus. 

Nevertheless the time had come for the public con- 
fession m the world of the Lord Jesus Christ whom 
Pilate had crucified. God's designs were to be 

1 Tertnllian, Apol c. 21. 



FINAL IXVITATIOX TO THE HEATHENS. 163 

accomplisliecl, and His ways are not as our ways, nor 
can His ends be measured by our notions of expediency 
or fitness. The confession of Christ's spiritual kingship 
was to be extended to the acknowledgroent of His pre- 
eminence over the kings and rulers of this world also. 
The behevers had passed from city to city, preach- 
ing the eternal kingdom of the anointed Son of God. 
They had been misunderstood, slandered, persecuted ; 
they had been accused of turning the world upside 
down, with all its pohtical combinations ; of rejecting 
tlie laws of the empire, and setting up another ruler in 
the place of Caesar ; w]iile in fact the vital principle of 
their faith had resided in the stedfastness with which 
they clung to a purely spiritual idea, and shrank from 
minghng it with any temporal alloy. This self-denial, 
this shnphcity of piu-pose had now^ reaped its reward. 
The graces of the Christian had shone brighter from 
the effort. The slanders of the heathen had been 
converted into actual truth. At the meeting of the 
fathers of the cliurch at Niciea the heathen were for the 
first time solemnly invited to see the men who had 
thus turned the world upside down, and had set up by 
the hands of their champion Constantine another law, 
another rule, a new order of political life. We have 
traced through various channels the preparation for the 
Gospel which had been long in progress in the minds 
of the heathen : the chsruption of their old creeds 
and intellectual bonds — the extinction of their famihar 
prejudices — the awakening of many new moral senses, 
the sense of spiritual equality, the sense of sin, of a 

M 2 



164 LECTUEE VIII. 

need for a Eecleemer, of a fearful and desperate ap- 
prehension of their lost and hapless condition. Again 
we have seen how the dogmas of the Christian creed, 
now at last discovered to them, might precisely meet 
the demands of the latest heathen speculation ; and 
to-day we have observed, still further, how the 
character of the Christian life and conduct might 
reassure them in their last moments of hesitation, and 
complete the golden proof of the descent of Christianity 
from God. Thus they were prepared on all sides. 
Gently the Holy Spirit had trained and manipulated 
them, and they stood like spirits imprisoned waiting for 
the word of God to set them free. A word, a touch, 
an invisible impulse, a breath of s^nnpathy from the 
source of life everlasting, might kindle their imagina- 
tions as with iire, and set their hearts aglow with holy 
flame. And the awful suspense of that central moment, 
the solemn issues pending, the suddenness mth which 
the blessed movement should be at last communicated, 
and the confession of Christ imperiously extorted — the 
final triumph of faith over the sluggish scruples of the 
understanding — all this is indicated to my mind by a 
striking incident recorded at the time, by a story of 
individual conversion which betokens, as it were, in a 
single typical instance, the operation of the Holy Spirit 
cliiTused at one moment in the hearts of millions. 

' Hearken to me, philosopher,' said a Christian 
divine to one who hovered, wondering and perplexed, 
about the footsteps of the fathers as they marched 
triumphantly to the council ; ' hearken in the name of 



COXYEKSIOX OF THE EMPIRE. 165 

Jesus Christ. There is one only God, Creator of the 
heavens and the earth, and of all things visible and 
invisible. He has made everythmg by the power of 
His Word, and estabhshed all by the sanctity of His 
Spirit. This Word is He whom we call the Son of 
God ; who taking pity on the errors of men, and their 
way of hfe, like that of the beasts which perish, has 
deigned to be born of a woman, to dwell among us, 
and to die for us. He will come again as a Judge of 
all their deeds upon earth, as a Punisher and a Ee- 
warder. Behold simply the sum of oiu' behef. Seek 
not with pain and anxiety for the proof of things 
which faith only can reahze, nor for the reason of their 
existence. Say only. Wilt thou believe ? The philo- 
sopher trembled and stammered, *' I beheve.'" ^ 

And so it was with the heathens generally. The case 
of this individual inquirer is a type of the heathen 
society, gasping for spiritual Hfe. In tliis story we 
read, as in a myth, the conversion of the Eoman 
Empire. Argument and conjecture, testimony and 
proof, had been accumulated from generation to genera- 
tion ; the decision of mankind was trembling in the 
balance. Then came the last touching appeal to the 
court of final resort, to the heart, to the source of all 
spiritual faith. God was in it ; the world believed ; 
the Eoman Empire was converted. 

Nor is the history of this splendid conversion with- 
out its application to ourselves. It is, as I have shown, 

» See Note K K. 



166 LECTURE- VIII. 

on a grand and general scale, the history of many an 
individual conversion. It shows how God even now 
works on the heart of the natural man ; for every man 
is by nature a heathen. Every man has his innate 
pride, his fancied claims upon God, his complacent 
self-rehance in spiritual things ; every man fashions a 
God or Idol of his own, after his own heart, and 
adapted to his own conceit. Every man has an 
inveterate hankering after material things, and rises 
with pain and weariness to the conception of the 
spiritual ; can hardly retain his hold of it, if he has in 
any wise attained to it. But let fear or sorrow awaken 
the sense of sin in him, a sense by God's mercy not 
difficult to awaken in most men, and the whole man is 
changed. Alarm and agony take possession of him, he 
will do anything, he imagines anything, that may seem 
to offer a prospect of salvation. He rushes to the 
extreme of superstition and fanaticism, to wild and 
gloomy practices, to magical arts, to purifications by 
blood, to self-torture and immolation. To restore the 
balance of his mind he requires the stay of pure and 
simple doctrine ; — a knowledge of God and of the true 
means of grace in Him, founded upon a historical 
basis ; something firm to grasp, stable to rest upon ; 
something to fiU the heart, to feed the imagination, to 
satisfy the understanding. He wants something that he 
can feel, and at the same time something that he can 
reason about. Christianity offers him an exercise for 
the moral, the intellectual, and the spiritual faculty. 
It is abundant in consolation, fruitful in argument, 



CONVERSION OF THE INDIVIDUAL SINNER. 167 

overflowing in its apprehension of the divine. It is 
what every tender and pious soul would wish to make 
its own by beheving. Then let him finally trace it in 
its results. Let him examine what it has effected on 
the souls of men, as far as his vision can penetrate, and 
this is but skin deep ; what it is now doing ; what it 
promises to do in him and in all men ; what love, 
what holiness, what resignation, what hope it produces ! 
The hves of Christians have been ever the last and 
surest argument for Christianity. This completed he 
conversion of the Empire : this completes day by day 
the conversion of the worldling and the sinner. It de- 
fies criticism ; it transcends philosophy. It leads direct 
to the throne of God, to the source of all moral good- 
ness and holiness, and reveals the object of our faith, 
the Author of every good and perfect gift, in whose 
image we are made, in whose righteousness we trust 
hereafter to be clothed. Faith in Him, thus revealed to 
the imagination, will calm t]:ie last fluttering tumult of 
the soul, and rock us asleep in the bosom of our 
Eedeemer. And such is the blessed end to which the 
sacred record leads us, in words which breathe a strain 
of heavenly music, wafted onward from age to age, from 
generation to generation : ' But ye, beloved, building 
up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying to the 
Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God, 
looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto 
eternal hfe.'^ 

1 Jude 20, 21. 



NOTES. 



NOTES, 



Note A, page 11. 

The language used by Caesar, Cato, and Cicero, in the debate 
on the punishment of the Catilinarian conspirators, has drawn 
the marked attention of inquirers into the religious opinions 
of the ancients. Among others, Warburton made great use 
of it to enforce his opinion that the students of heathen phi- 
losophy were universally disbelievers in a future state of 
retribution, although from prudential motives, legislators and 
statesmen generally- combined to uphold one. More recently. 
Lord Brougham, in his ^ Discourse on Natural Theology,' re- 
ferred to it in discussing Warburton's views on the general 
question, and elicited a shrewd and accurate review of the 
debate before us from Dr. Turton. ' I will state,' says the 
last-named writer, ^as briefly as possible, the circumstances 
of the case. The question proposed to the senate was, " What 
should be done, with regard to those of the agents in Cati- 
line's conspiracy, who were in custody ? " Julius Silanus, as 
consul elect, spoke first, and was of opinion that they should 
be put to death. Csesar, who, it will be recollected, was an 
Epicurean, dwelt upon their deeds as crimes to which no suf- 
ferings that could be devised would be adequate ; represented 
death as, in cases of gTief and wretchedness, the termination 
of sorrows, not the exacerbation — all the ills of life being 
dissipated by that event, beyond which there was neither trou- 
ble nor joy; and recommended the severest punishment that 
was consistent with the continuance of life. 



172 NOTES. 

[" Equidem sic existumo, Patres conscript!, omnes crnciatns 
minor es quam facinora illorum esse : . . . De poena possumus 
equidem dicere id quod res habet : in luctu atque miseriis mortem 
aerumnarum requiem non cruciatum esse : earn cuncta mortalium 
mala dissolvere : ultra neque curge neque gaudii locum esse." — 
Sallust, Bell. Catil. c. 51. 

' Cato, a Stoic — in a speech also given by Salliist — men- 
tioned, with commendation of the manner and no dislike of 
the matter, Caesar's dissertation on life and death ; slightly 
observing that he supposed Csesar to consider as false the 
things that were reported of the infernal regions ; namely, the 
separation of the good from the bad, who were consigned to 
places abounding in everything disagreeable and horrible. 

[" Bene et composite C. Caesar paulo ante in hoc ordine de vita et 
morte disseruit ; falsa, credo, existumans, quae de inferis memorantiu* ; 
diverse itinere malos a bonis loca tetra, inculta, foeda atque formi- 
dolosa habere " (Sallust, c. 52). I trace the irony of the speaker in 
the words, " bene et composite," still more in. the parenthetic 
" credo." Plutarch supplies other instances of what I have called 
Cato's humour. See in the Life chapters 12, 21; 24, and 46.] 

' So far we have depended upon the authority of Sallust, and 
notwithstanding the *' Sallustian style " [Brougham's Dis- 
course, p. 286] in which he has reported the speeches of Caesar 
and of Cato, there is ample reason to believe that he has accu- 
rately given the substance of what was spoken. Let us now 
turn to the orations of Cicero, and see what information can 
be gathered from that great master of the academic school, in 
his own style. In the course of his address he mentions the 
two opinions which had been delivered: the one enforcing 
death, the other the severest punishment in this life : the 
former, as demanded by the danger to which the Eoman 
people had been exposed ; the latter, as being more efficacious 
than death, which was not ordained for punishment at all. 
He goes on to describe Caesar's plan, as subjecting those mis- 
creants to chains and imprisonment and poverty and despair, 
as leaving them nothing but life — which being taken away, 



NOTES. 173 

they would be freed from the punishment of their wickedness. 
So that, by way of terror to the evil, the ancients were of 
opinion that some punishments should be assigned to the 
impious in the infernal regions, conceiving that, without such 
punishments, death would not be an object of dread. 

["Video dnas adhuc esse sententias : unam D. Silani, qui censet, 
eos, qui liaec delere conati sunt, morte esse midtandos : alteram C. 
Caesaris, qui mortis poenam removet, ca^terorum suppliciorum omnes 
acerbitates amplectitur. . . Alter eos, qui nos omnes, qui po- 
pulum Eomanum vita privare conati sunt, qui delere imperium, 
qui popuh Romani nomen exstinguere, punctum temporis frui vita 
ethoccommunispiritu non putat oportere. . . . Alter intelHgit 
mortem a Dis immortalibus non esse supphcii causa constitutam ; 
sed aut necessitatem natiu-as, aut laborum ac miseriarum quietem 
esse. . . Itaque ut aliqua in vita formido improbis esset posita, 
apud inferos ejusmodi quaedam ilH antiqui supplicia impiis consti- 
tuta esse voluerunt, quod, videhcet intelhgebant, his remotis, non 
esse mortem ipsam pertimescendam. " — Cicero in Catil. iv. 4. 5.] 

' We see, then, how completely Sallust's account of the 
debate is confirmed by Cicero's oration, as preserved in his 
own works. . . . We see, also, with what indifiference the 
avowal of Caesar's Epicurean disbelief of a future retribution 
was treated in the Eoman Senate. Considered simply as a 
matter of religion, it seems not to have been deemed worthy 
of a remark,' &c. &c. — Turton, Natural Theolvgy considered, 
&c., 1836, p. 320, fol. 

Plutarch, I may add, in stating the conflicting opinion of 
Caesar and Cato, and mentioning the curious fact that Cicero 
had provided means of having Cato's speech taken down by 
reporters for dispersion among the citizens, makes no reference 
to the religious bearing of their arguments. This may tend 
to show the indifference of the audience to the expression of 
sceptical views on such subjects, but it can by no means 
invalidate the substantial correctness of Sallust's report, con- 
firmed as it is by the comment of Cicero himself. Sallust 
was about twenty-three at this period, and had not yet ap- 
parently entered upon his public career or attained a seat in 



174" NOTES. 

the Senate ; but he was a party man, intimate with the public 
characters of the day, and an adherent ol Caesar's. Csesar 
and Sallust, it may be said, were of the party of progress, 
and it was their policy, as well as their temper, to unsettle 
the foundations of national prejudice and usage : but at the 
same time, it will be remembered, Lucretius, the friend of 
Memmius, the client and poet of the nobility, flung into the 
world his daring manifesto of unbelief, a work which marks 
in itself an era in the progress of free thought and expression 
among the Komans. The entire denial of a Deity, a Provi- 
dence, a spiritual nature in man, or a moral purpose in crea- 
tion, in the rhapsody * De Rerum Natura,' is exactly analogous 
to Csesar's declaration against a future retribution ; while the 
strange inconsistency of the poet's address to Venus, the 
Mother of the Romans, the Delight of gods and men, the 
favourite of Mars, the divine source of life, is not less analo- 
gous to the inconsistent position assumed by Csesar as a 
materialist in philosophy and a minister of religion. I shall 
have occasion to say more, in subsequent lectures, of the 
opinions of the heathen at Rome on the subject of Divine 
retribution. Here I wish chiefly to point out the licence of 
speech and thought regarding it, and the indifference with 
which sceptical views on the subject of a future life would 
be regarded at least by the upper classes of the Empire. 



Note B, page 19. 

The principal texts referred to occur in the Life of Con- 
stantine by Eusebius Pamphilus (iii, 7), and the ecclesiastical 
histories of the same Eusebius, of Socrates (i, 11), of Sozo- 
men (i. 18), of Rufinus, and Theodoret. I have borrowed 
from De Broglie's vivid grouping of the council in his VEglise 
et r Empire Romain (ch. iv.). 

It should be remarked that the object of the Council of 
Nicsea, in regard to the settling of dogma, was not to establish, 
as is sometimes loosely said, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, 



NOTES. 175 

but to determine the position of the Divine Son in the scheme 
of revelation. The actual symbol subscribed at Nicssa, after 
asserting the various articles of our ^Nicene Creed,' as far as 
relates to the Father and the Son, terminates with a single 
additional article : * I believe in the Holy Grhost.' The 
articles which define the character and functions of the third 
person in the Trinity, and those which follow to the end of 
our received formula, were added towards the end of the 
century at the Council of Constantinople, a.d. 381 ; but, as 
forming the accredited complement of the Creed of Nic88a, 
and popularly considered as included in it, I have not hesi- 
tated to cite them also as a substantive portion of the symbol 
in question. They serve to complete and bring out in strong- 
relief the contrast to which I point between the scepticism of 
the Pagan and the dogmatism of the Christian assembly. 

The text of the creed, as authorized at Nicsea, is given by 
Socrates, Hist. Eccl. i. 8 : — 

'TiiarTsvofJbZv sis sva Osov, iraripa 'jraproKparopa, ttolvtcov 
oparoiv re koI aopdjwv itoltjttjv. 

* Kal els sva l^vpLOV ^Itjctovv l^pLo-rov, rov vtov rod Osov ' 
jswrjOspra sk tov irarpos fiovoysvij' tovt sariv, sk rrjs ovaias 
Tov TraTpoSy 6sov sk Osov kol <p(as sk (fxaToSi Osov dXrjOivov sk 
Osov aXrjdtvov' fysvvrjOsvra ov TroirjOsvTaf o/JLOovaLOV Ta> iraTpl' 
Bi ov TO, irdvTa s<ysvsT0, rd re sv tu> ovpavcp kol ra sv ry yfj. At' 
'^fids Tovs dvOpcawovs koL hid T'qv y/uLsrspav awTrjpiav KarsX- 
Oovra, Kol crapKcoOsvra, kol svavOpcoirijcravTa' iraOovra, kol 
dvaardvra rfj TpLTj] rjiMSpa, dvsXOovra sis rovs ovpavovs, sp')(6- 
pbsvov Kplvai ^(ovras koX vsKpovs. 

' Kat sis TO d'yiov irvsvixaJ' 

To which was appended an explanatory statement, con- 
cluding with an anathema : — 

* Tous hs XsyovTaSf on rjv ttots ots ovk rjv * Kal Trplv ^svvqOrjvai 
ovK r]v ' Kal ore s^ ovk ovtcov sysvsro ' rj s^ srspas viroardo-soys rj 
ovaias (pdaKOVTas slvai' rj ktlcttov, '^ rpsinov, i) dXkoicorov rov 
vlov rov Osov' dvaOsfxari^SL rj ay la naOoXiKr] Kal diroGroXLKTj 
SKKXTjala,^ 



17G NOTES. 

Note C, page 25. 

I distinguish here between the conception of a Future State, 
as pretended to be revealed in the ancient mythology, and 
such as the philosophers might represent to themselves from 
the light of reason or imagination. Undoubtedly the com- 
mon sentiment of mankind demands a belief in a future 
Eetribution, and such we find to have been the teaching of 
the earliest mythological systems of Paganism. Such a belief 
is implied repeatedly in casual expressions of Homer, and is 
more positively declared in his description of Elysium and 
Tartarus, Nevertheless, when he sets himself deliberately to 
give an account of the infernal regions, his views become at 
once confused, and his picture of the state of the blessed is 
little less gloomy than that of the punishment of the wicked. 
This gloom is evidently a reflection of his own perplexity, 
and the painful feelings it naturally produced. As long as 
the Pagans could refrain from thinking on this subject, they 
might acquiesce implicitly in the mythological teaching ; but 
this otiose assent vanished immediately when they began to 
reflect, and to draw logical inferences from the bare outlines of 
their traditional creed. The poets, to whom the fantastic 
stories of the popular religion furnished inexhaustible attrac- 
tions, continued long to foster this unreflecting belief or 
acquiescence, and the common language of the people would 
still longer retain the tone of ages of a more real faith : but 
the philosophers meanwhile discarded without reserve the 
fables of the ancient mythology, and generally lost their grasp 
altogether of the idea which lay at the bottom of them. The 
positive side of their tenets on the subject of a future life will 
be referred to in another place. I believe there will be no 
question as to the truth of the statement in the text of the 
general unbelief of the educated people in Grreece and Eome. 
The well-known passage in which Juvenal is often supposed 
to rebuke the discredit into which the mythological creed had 
fallen, seems to me, on the contrary, to show that in his view 
and that of the classes he addressed, not only the ancient 



NOTES 177 

Hades was a fable, but the ground-idea of a future retribution 
was equally baseless. See Sat. ii. 149 : 

' Esse aliquid manes, et subterranea regna, 
Et contum et Stjgio ranas sub gurgite nigras, 
Atque una transire vadum tot millia cymba, 
Nee pueri credunt, nisi qui nondum aere lavantiu: : 
Sed tu vera puta : Curius quid sentit et ambo 
Scipiadee,' &c. 

*Puta,' I conceive, both from the common use of the ex- 
pression, and from the analogy of the writer's teaching else- 
where, can only mean, 'But suppose them true!' Juvenal 
not only rejects the superstition of the vulgar, but is at a loss 
to refer to any more hopeful ground from reason or revelation 
for inculcatino^ a religious belief in a future retribution at all. 
Throughout his moral teaching he is consistent in confining 
his views to temporal rewards and punishments only. 

'Dans les classes cultivees les mythes du Tartare et de 
TElysee etaient traites de fables absurdes ; un materialisme 
grossier ne de I'Epicurisme, ou bien une resignation orgueil- 
leuse a I'aneantissement produite par le Pantheisme stoicien, 
parfois un reve platonicien ou plutot oriental de metempsy- 
cose, telles etaient les croyances predominantes parmis les 
paiens eclaires.' — Pressense, Hist, des Trois Premiers Siecles 
de VEglise Chretienne, 2e serie, i. 111. 

Note D, Page 27. 

The ceremony of lustrating the city by a procession of the 
priests of the four great colleges (quatuor summa vel amplis- 
sima collegia), namely, the Pontifices, Augures, Quindecimviri, 
and Septemviri or Epulones, to whom, in the Imperial times, 
were added the Augustales, occurs frequently in the early 
history of Kome, on the occasion of disasters to be expiated 
or averted. The Supplication was a solemnity of similar 
import, and of still more frequent occurrence : in the one the 
procession made a circuit of the space to which the lustration 
or expiation was to be applied ; in the other the images of 

N 



178 XOTES. 

certain deities were carried from shrine to shrine, with hymns, 
sacrifices, and other formalities. Both these ceremonies were 
resorted to under the empire, as we read in Tacitus, Anncd. 
iii. 64 ; xiii. 24 ; Hist i. 87 ; iv. 53. 

I refer in the text to a lustration of the city which seems 
to have taken place in the culminating period of Eoman 
irreligion, on the alarm at Caesar's crossing the Eubicon. The 
historian, Appian {Bell. Civ. ii. 36), says simply: s^^al Ss, 
0J9 STTL (j)ol3spoL9, TTpovypdcf^ovTo. I sce uo rcasou to doubt 
that Lucan follows a genuine tradition when he paraphrases 
this statement with a rhetorical description of a lustration of 
the city, such as he may himself have witnessed about an 
hundred years later, a.d. 56, in the reign of Nero. (Tac. Ann. 
xiii. 24). ' Urbem Princeps lustravit ex response haruspicum, 
quod Jovis ac Minervae sedes' (the Capitol) ' de coelo tact^.' 
Lucan's representation of the ceremony which took place on 
such solemn occasions is ample and vivid, Pharsalia, i. 
592, foil. 

* Mox jubet et totam pavidis a civibus Urbem 
Ambiri, et festo purgantes moenia li^stro 
Longa per extremes pomoeria cingere fines 
Pontifices, sacri quibus est permissa potestas. 
Turba minor ritu sequitur succincta Gabino, 
Vestalemque chorum ducit vittata sacerdos, 
Trojanam soli cui fas vidisse Minervam. 
Tum qui fata deum secretaque carmina servant, 
Et lotam parvo revocant Almone Cybeben ; 
Et doctus volucres Augur servare smistras ; 
Septemvirque epulis festis, Titiique sodales ; 
Et Salius Iceto portans ancilia collo ; 
Et toUens apicem generoso vertice Flamen.' 

It may be interesting to compare this poetic description 
with the prose narration of what was doubtless a very similar 
solemnity by Tacitus, Hist. iv. 53 (a.d. 70). 

' Curam restituendi Capitolii in L. Vestinum confert. . . . 
Undecimo calendas Junias, serena luce, spatium omne, quod 
templo dicabatur, evinctum vittis coronisque. Ingressi mill- 



NOTES. 179 

tes, quis fausta nomina, felicibus ramis : dein virgines Vestales, 
cum piieris puellisque patrimis matrimisque, aqua vivivS e 
fontibus amnib usque hausta perluere. Turn Helvidius Pris- 
cus prsetor, praeeunte Plautio ^'Eliano pontifice, lustrata suove- 
taurilibus area et super caespitem redditis extis, Jovem, 
Junonem, Minervam prsesidesque imperii deos precatus, uti 
coepta prosperarent, sedesque suas pietate homimim inchoatas 
divina ope attollerent, vittas quis b'gatus lapis innexique funes 
erant contigit. Simul ceteri magistratus et sacerdotes et 
senatus et eques et magna pars populi, studio Itetitiaque con- 
nixi, saxum ingens traxere; passimque injectae fundamentis 
argenti aurique stipes, et metallorum primitiae nullis forna- 
cibus victae, sed ut gignuntur.' 



Note E, Page 39. 

Lactantius, Institutionum clivin., vii. 6 : — 
*Nunc totam rationem brevi circumscriptione signemus. 
Idcirco mundus factus est, ut nascamur : ideo nascimur, ut 
amoscamus factorem mundi ac nostri Deum : ideo amosci- 
mus, ut colamus ; ideo colimus, ut immortalitatem pro labo- 
rum mercede capiamus, quoniam maximis laboribus cultus 
Dei constat : ideo praemio immortalitatis adficimur, ut similes 
angelis effecti, summo patri ac domino in perpetuum servia- 
mus, et simus aeternum Deo reg-num. Haec summa rerum 
est, hoc arcanum Dei, hoc mysterium mundi, a quo sunt 
a,lieni, qui, sequentes prsesentem voluptatem, terrestribus et 
fragilibus se bonis addixerunt, et animas ad ccelestia genitas 
suavitatibus mortiferis, tanquam luto ccenove demerserunt. 
Quasramus nunc vicissim, an in cultu Deorum ratio uUa 
subsistat : qui si multi sunt, si ideo tantum ab hominibus 
coluntur, ut praestent illis opes, victorias, honores, qu^que alia 
non nisi ad praesens valent; si sine causa gignimur; si in 
hominibus procreandis providentia nulla versatur; si casu 
nobismetipsis ac voluptatis nostrae gratia nascimur ; si nihil 
post mortem sumus : quid potest esse tam super vacuum, tam 
inane, tam vanum, quam humana res, et quam mundus ipse ; 

N 2 



150 NOTES. 

— qui, quiim sit mcredibili magnitudine, tarn mirabili ratione 
constructus, tamen rebus ineptis vacet? Cur enim ventorum 
spiritus citent nubes, cur emicent fulgura, tonitrua mugiant, 
imbres cadant, ut fruges terra producat, ut varies foetus 
alat ; cur denique omnis natura rerum laboret, ne quid desit 
earum rerum, quibus vita ho minis sustinetur, si est inanis, si 
ad nihilum interimus, si nihil est in nobis majoris emolu- 
menti Deo ? Quod si est dictu nefas, nee putandum est fieri 
posse, ut non ob aliquam maximam rationem fuerit consti- 
tutum quod videas maxima ratione constare ; qu^ potest esse 
ratio in his erroribus pravarum reiigionum, et in hac persua- 
sione philosophorum, qua putant animas interire ? Profecto 
nulla.' 

Note F, Page 43. 

M. Denis, in his Histoire des Theories et Idees Morales 
dans VAntiquiU (i. p. 149), thus describes the spiritual 
deity conceived by Plato : — 

(1.) ^ Au-dessus du monde sensible, Tesprit conpoit neces- 
sairement un autre monde, celui des intelligibles ou des Idees, 
et au sommet du monde des Idees brille d'une eternelle splen- 
dure ridee du bien, d'ou toutes les autres emanent. Le 
bien, dit Platon, est fort au-dessus de I'essence en perfection 
et en dignite ; le bien n'est point la verite ni I'intelligence : il 
en est le pere. De meme que le soleil, qui est I'image visible 
du bien, regne sur ce monde qu'il eclaire et qu'il vivifie : de 
meme le bien, dont le soleil n'est que I'ouvrage, regne sur le 
monde intelligible, qu'il enfante en vertu de son inepuisable 
fecondite. Le bien, c'est Dieu meme dans ce qu'il a de plus 
essentiel. C'est vers cette perfection souveraine que la raison 
s'elance; c'est a cette beaute infinie que I'amour aspire. 
" Beaute merveilleuse," s'ecrie Platon, " beaute eternelle, 
increee, imperissable, exempte d'accroissement et de diminu- 
tion ; . . . beaute qui n'a rien de sensible, ni de corporel, comme 
des mains ou un visage; qui ne reside pas dans un etre diffe- 
rent d'elle-meme, dans la terre, dans le ciel, ou dans toute 
autre chose, mais qui existe eternellement et absolument en 



NOTES. 181 

elle-meme et par elle-meme; beaute de laquelle toiites les 
autres beautes participent, sans que leur naissance ou leur 
destruction lui apporte la moindre diminution ou le moindre 
accroissement, et la modifie en quoi que ce soit/' ' &c. Com- 
pare among many other passages Convivium, p. 211; Ti- 
mceus, 28, 29, 30, 37. 

(2.) Of Grod's Providence. Denis, p. 150 :— 'Si telle est la 
nature de Die a, on pent juger de son action sur I'univerSo 
C'est lui qui a fait ce bel ordre visible que nous appelons le 
monde. ... II I'a done fait selon son intelligence et selon 
sabonte; I'oeil toujours fixe sur les idees ou sur le modele 
eternel et immuable, il a partout introduit I'ordre, la mesure, 
le nombre et I'harmonie. ... Si Dieu conserve, soutient et 
gouverne ce monde, peut-on croire qu'il ne s'inquiete pas de 
la partie la plus divine de son ouvrage, de celle qui certaine- 
ment vient de lui quant a sa substance, lors meme que tout 
le reste ne viendrait pas ? Non. . . . Sage simplement par 
rapport aux objets sensibles, Dieu est juste par rapport aux 
esprits. Nous avons deja vu comment il est le principe de la 
justice est de la loi. Mais se pourrait-il qu'il negligeat ceux 
qui se conforment a ses decrets eternels, et qui, en obeissant a 
la justice, s'efforcent de lui ressembler ? Quiconque est juste 
doit etre heureux, . . . mais en voyant des hommes violents 
et impies s'elever de la plus basse condition jusqu'aux plus 
hautes dignites et meme jusqu'a la tyrannie, ne voulant pas 
accuser Dieu de ces desordres, nous en venous a penser qu'a 
1^ verite Dieu existe, mais qu'il dedaigne de s'occuper des 
affaires humaines. Les apparences nous depoivent, et nous 
ne voyons pas quel terrible tribut ces hommes heureux doivent 
un jour payer a I'ordre general.' — Plato, Leges, p. 716 ; comp. 
pp. 889, 906 ; Meno, pp. 99, 100. 

(3. ) Plato seems to have augured the possibility of a future 
state of retribution, rather than to have insisted on it as a 
certain or probable fact. \Yhen he says, as in the ' Laws,' 
p. 716, that divine justice always follows those w^ho fall short 
of the divine law, he may regard punishments in this life 
rather than in another. The use he makes of the mytho- 



182 NOTES. 

logical fables of Elysium and Tartarus seems to imply a con- 
sciousness that he could not appeal to the reason of mankind 
on the subject, and must content himself with working on 
their feelings. 

'Quoi qu'il en soit/ says M. Denis, p. 160, ^il est evident 
que I'immortalite de I'ame est necessaire a sa morale. Aussi 
ses dialogues sont-ils pleins d'allusions aux biens et aux maux 
que la justice de Dieu reserve a nos vertus ou a nos vices. 
"Lorsque Tame," dit-il dans les 'Lois,' *'a fait des progres mar- 
ques, soit dans le bien, soit dans le mal, par une volonte ferme 
et soutenue ; si c'est dans le bien et qu'elle se soit attachee a la 
divine vertu jusqu'a en devenir divine comme elle, alors 
elle repoit de grandes distinctions, et du lieu qu'elle occupe, 
elle passe dans une autre demeure toute sainte et bienheu- 
reuse ; si elle a vecu dans le vice, elle va habiter une demeure 
conforme a son etat. Ni toi, ni qui que ce soit, ne pourra 
jamais se vanter de s'etre soustrait a cet ordre fait pour etre 
observe plus inviolablement qu'aucun autre, et qu'il faut 
infiniment respecter. Tu ne lui echapperas jamais, quand tu 
serais assez petit pour penetrer jusqu'aux abimes de la terre, 
ni quand tu serais assez grand pour t'elever jusqu'au ciel." 
II est impossible d'affirmer plus fortement cette verite ; mais 
Platon ne la traite guere, en general, que comme une ample 
matiere a de beaux mythes poetiques.' 

(3.) On the duty of Eepentance. Denis, p. 104: — 'Ne 
considerez, toutefois, que le fond des idees, et vous verrez 
que Platon a le premier etabli la necessite morale de la peni- 
tence, dont le christianisme a fait depuis un de ses dogmes. 
II faut que nous soyons punis de nos fautes ; et ce n'est pas 
moins notre interet que notre devoir de courir au devant de 
la justice irritee, de nous exposer a ses reproches et a ses 
chatiments, de retablir par la penitence la sante de Tame 
corrompue par le peche : voila ce que preche le christianisme ; 
voila ce que Platon enseignait quatre siecles avant Christ. 
Mais la verite, telle que le philosophe la presente, ne salt 
point se preter a notre faiblesse et compatir a notre neant. . . 
Le dirai-je ? Emanation du plus pur spiritualisme, cette verite 



NOTES. 183 

conserve encore, au moins dans I'expression de Platon, qnelque 
chose du materialisme des anciens ages. . Le philosophe semble 
plus regarder aux peines physiques qu'a la contrition du coeur, 
qui seule constitue la vraie penitence. On dirait qu'il crai- 
gnait de n'etre point compris des esprits materiels de son temps. 
Mais, sous quelque forme qu'elle se presente, la verite est la 
verite, et Ton ne saurait trop admirer de rencontrer au sortii* 
de la Sophistique, et dans la corruption des Grrecs, une morale 
si hardie, si profonde, et si austere.' 

In the Gorgias (p. 480) Plato enjoins the criminal to accuse 
himself to the judge : — 

' 'Eaz/ Bs ys aBiKi]arj rj avTos tj aX\o9 tls Siv av K-qBrjrat, avrov 
sKovra IhaL sKelcrs, oirov oos ra^^tcrra Sooaet Slktjv, irapa tov 
St/caa-TTjv, otiaTTsp irapa tov larpbv, airsvBovTa ottcos pur) i'y')(^po- 
VLdOlv TO voarj/jba ttjs dBcKias vttovKov T-qv '\^v')(r^v Troiyjast Kal 
avtaTOv.^ 

(4.) Under the name of Justice, Plato enjoins the practice 
of love and charity towards our neighbours in terms which 
deserve to be placed alongside of our Christian teaching. 
Denis, p. 99: — 'Platon rejette toutes les definitions de la 
j astice, qui avaient cours dans la philosophic grecque ; non 
seulement celle des Sophistes qui mettaient la justice dans le 
droit du plus fort, mais encore cette definition en apparence 
si raisonnable, qu'il faut rendre a chacun ce qui lui est du. 
Elle lui parait digne non d'un sage, mais d'un Periandre, 
d'un Xerxes, ou de tout autre tyran. Avec quelle force il 
raontre qu'elle r cedent a dire qu'il faut faire du bien a ses 
amis, du mal a ses ennemis ! Veut-on dire simplement qu'il 
faut faire du bien aux bons et du mal aux mechants ? Et 
quoi ! est-il d'un juste de faire du mal a un homme quel qu'il 
soit ? N'est-ce done pas une necessite que ceux a qui Ton fait 
du mal deviennent pires par cela meme ? L'homme juste ne 
doit-il pas, au contraire, servir jusqu'a ses ennemis, et ra- 
mener les mechants au bien par sa vertu ? ' Comp. RepuhL, 
i. pp. 331-336, and other places. 



184 NOTES. 



Note Gr, Page 44 



M. Denis, i. 144: — ' On aimerait quePlaton fat alle plus loin, 
et qu'aii lieii de s'arreter a la Grrece, sa pensee se fat etendue 
a riiumanite. Mais s'il declare que les Grrecs sont naturelle- 
ment amis, et qu'ils sont unis par la fraternite du sang, il 
declare aussi qu'ils sont naturellement etrangers et ennemis 
a regard des barbares. Sans partager absolument les pre- 
juges de ses compatriotes a Fegard des etrangers, tout en soute- 
nant que le roi de Perse est au moins aussi noble que le plus 
noble des Grrecs, que les Egyptiens sont les plus sages des 
mortels, et qu'on trouve aussi des bommes vraiment divins 
cbez les barbares, il accepte pourtant la division grecque de 
notre espece en deux parties naturellement hostiles ; et si I'on 
rencontre cbez lui I'amour non de telle ou telle cite, mais de 
la patrie, il est impossible d'y trouver I'amour de I'humanite.' 
Compare the Republic, v. p. 470 ; — 

' ^7)/M jap TO fJLsv ^FiXXrjviKov jsvos avTO avrw oIksIov slvac 
fcal ^vyyspss, tw Ss /Sap^apLfCM oOvslov ts koX aXkorpiOV. . . . 
"^Wr]vas fisp apa ^aplBdpois, kol ^ap^dpovs'^^WrjaL irokspLslv 
IJLa')(ppbivov9 TS <j>7]aofjbsv, teal ttoXs/jliovs (pvasi, slvat. , , '^EA-X,?;- 
vas Bs'^^Wtjctcv OTav tl tolovto Spcoai, (pvasc fxsv (filXovs alvai, 
voaslv hs sv tw TOtovT(£> TTjv ^EiXkdha kol aTacrid^SLv, 

And further, i. 373 :— 

'Platon, non plus qu'Aristote, ne conpoit de republique 
que s'il I'enferme dans une certaine enceinte ; il lui faut pour 
cela un lieu convenable et de son choix ; il veut qu'il n'y ait 
dans son Etat imaginaire que dix mille citoyens comme a 
Sparte.' 

Note H, Page 45. 

The views of Aristotle with regard to slavery are thus 
summed up by Wallon, Hist de VEsclavage dans VAnti- 
quite, i. 372 foil. :— 

' L'Etat, selon la definition d'Aristote, est une societe com- 
posee de telle sorte qu'elle trouve en elle de quoi suffire a 



NOTES. 185 

toutes les necessites de la vie . . . Ainsi va se marquer, dans 
la masse des hommes qui le composent necessairement, line 
ligne de partage nettement tracee. D'un cote, le citoyen 
accomplissant a lui seul la destination de la cite, tendant au 
bonheur par la vertu au sein du loisir; et de I'autre, des 
hommes dont le seul but parait etre de reodre aux citoyens 
ces loisirs possibles : pom* I'agriculture et I'industrie, des 
laboureurs et des artisans, pour le service prive des esclaves. 

' Cette organisation necessaire a I'Etat ainsi conpue, Aristote 
la retrouve j usque dans la famille, j usque dans la nature 
meme de I'homme. Car Fhomme est ne sociable. II n'est 
done complet que dans I'association domestique; et cette 
association comprend trois etres : Thomme qui commando la 
famille, la femme qui la perpetue, et I'esclave qui la sert. 
Supprimez une de ces trois lignes d'un triangle, et le triangle 
n'est plus ; de meme I'esclave est en quelque sorte un troisieme 
cote de I'liomme ; supprimez-le, et vous n'avez plus I'homme ; 
Fhomme en societe, c'est a dire, I'homme vrai. Mais la 
relation d'esclave a maitre ne se trouve pas seulement dans 
la constitution de I'homme sociable, dans la famille, Aristote 
la decouvre jusque dans le fond meme de I'homme individu : 
c'est le rapport du corps a I'ame. L'esclave est un corps, et 
I'idee finit par en passer dans le langage : on Tappela pure- 
ment et simplement corps, <7W/Lta.' 

For the essential difference between the master and the 
slave, as Aristotle conceived it, see the whole of the second 
chapter of the first book of the Politica. Compare, for 
instance : — 

' ^vasL fisv ovv ZiwpLGTai TO ^\v Kol TO SovXov . . . 
OVTO) yap av airoTskolTO KoXkiaTa tmv opydvcov sKaaTOV, fir} 
TToWoh spjocs aX>J hi BovXsvov. 'Ez^ Bs tols /3ap/3dpoLS to 
OrjXv KoX SovXov TTjv avTr)v £)^zi tcl^lV ultlov Ss, otl to (f>vasL 
dpxoy ovK £')(^ovaiv, dWd ylyvSTat r) Kocvcovia avTcov BovX7j9 /cal 
BovXov. Aio ^aatv OL7roL7)Tal' ^ap/Sdpcov B'^'^XXrjvas dp')(SLV 
sIkos ' 0)9 TavTo (f>vasL /Sdp^apov koI BovXov 6v. 

' ^Avd<yK7] lydp slval TLvas (pdvao tovs fisv iravTa')(pv BovXov?, 
Toifs B' ovBa/jLOv . . . d^iovai ydp, (aairsp If dvOpdnrov 



186 NOTES. 

avOpoaiTOV Kol sfc ^rjplayv fysviaOai SrjpioVf ovtco kol If dyadcov 
dyaOov. . . . "Ore fisv ovv s^sl tlvcl Xoyov rj dfi(f)Lcr^7]T7]ac9y 
fcal slcrtv ol fxhv (f^vasc BovXol, ol 3' sXsvOspot,, BtjXov.^ 

The inextricable difficulties in which this theory involved 
him must appear at first sight, and are well stated by Wallon : 
— ^ Mais, en admettant qu'il y ait un esclavage naturel, de 
quel appui serait-il a I'esclavage comme il est constitue dans 
la societe ? ' &c. 

M. Troplong (Z)6 VInfluence du Christianisme sur le 
Droit Romain, i. ch. iv. — a book of which I shall have to 
speak again) thus compares the views of Plato and Aristotle 
on the subject of slavery :—^ Platon disait : " Si un citoyen tue 
son esclave, la loi declare le meurtrier exempt de peine, 
pourvu qu'il se purifie par des expiations ; mais si un esclave 
tue son maitre, on lui fait subir tons les traitements qu'on 
juge a propos, pourvu qu'on ne lui laisse pas la vie." Aristote 
allait plus loin, s'il est possible, dans sa theorie de I'esclavage. 
^' II y a peu de difference dans les services que I'homme tire 
de I'esclave et de I'animal. La nature meme le veut, 
puisqu'elle fait les corps des hommes libres differents de 
ceux des esclaves ; donnant aux uns la force qui convient a 
leur destination, et aux autres une stature droite et elevee." 
Puis I'illustre philosophe conclut ainsi : — " II est done evident 
que les uns sont naturellement libres, et les autres naturelle- 
ment esclaves, et que, pour ces derniers, I'esclavage est aussi 
utile qu'il est juste." (Politic, i. 2.) Ainsi I'esclavage est de 
droit naturel; il trouve sa legitimite dans la justice et la na- 
ture : telle est la doctrine qu' Aristote expose sans objection.' 



Note I, Page 48. 

Plutarch (or Pseudo-Plutarch), De Alexandri M, Virtute 
aut Fortuna, i. 6 : — 

' Ov yap, Q)s 'ApL(7T0T£X7]s (TvvsffouXsvsv avrS, rots fisv "EX- 

Xr](TLV rjySfXOVLKMS, Tols 8e jSap^dpOlS hsaiTOTLKMS ')^pCOfJbSV09 ' 
Kol TWV fjLSV 0)S (plXoDV KOL OLKSLCOV STrtflsXoVlilSPOS, T0t9 Bs, 0)9 

^(poLS rj (fiVTols, irpoacj^spo/jLSVos, TroXsfjLOTroccov <f>vya>v sysTrXijas 



NOTES. 187 

Koi araa-scov vttovXwv Tr)v rjys/jLOViav, dWa kolvos '^rcstv S^sodsv 
dp/iioaTr]9 KOL StaWaKTrjs tcov oXcov vofjbi^cov, ovs tS Xoyw fxrj 
auvrjys, rois ottXols ^la^o/uLSVo?, sis to auTO avvsvsyKOiV rd irav- 
Ta')(66£v, coaTTsp iv KpaTrjpc (ptXoTrjaLO), [xi^as rovs ^lovs Kal 
rd TjOrj, Kal tov9 ydfJLOvs Kal hiairas, TTarplBa fxsv rrjv olKovfjbivqv 
irpoasra^sv rjyslcrOaL iravras, dKpo-noKiv Ss kcli (ppovpdv to 
arpaTOTTsSov, avyysvSLs Ba rovs dyaOovs, dXKo(j>v\ovs hs tovs 

TTOVTjpOVS' TO Bs 'EiWyVLKOV Kal (BapjBapLKOV fJLTJ '^Xa/JLvBi, fl7]Ss 

nrsXTTjy fjLrjBs dKcvd/crj, /jltjBs KdvSv'i Btopi^scv, dXXd to fisv 'EXX?;- 
VLKov dpsTj}, TO Bs jSap/SapLKov KaKia TSKfjualpsadat ' Kocvas Bs Tas 
EaOrjTas r^yslaOai Kal TpaTrs^as, Kal yd/xovs Kal BcaiTas, Be 
aifJuaTos Kal tskvojv dvaKspavvviJusvovs.^ 

If this treatise is not by Plutarch himself, it breathes the 
spirit of his age and of his views of history. It regards the 
character of Alexander's conquest from the point of a much 
later generation, and of a liberal and humane philosophj^ 
It judges of Alexanders policy from a comprehensive view 
of the effects it produced, and ascribes, fondly perhaps, to the 
man, a deliberate intention of which he may have had no 
conception. The earlier historians of Alexander, and Livy, 
who acutely criticizes his military character, indulged ap- 
parently in no such imaginations regarding him. Whether 
they were right or wrong in describing him as a mere 
conqueror need not be considered here. In any case the 
effect of his conquest was the same, and we may acknowledge 
our obligation to the author of the treatise before us, for 
calling attention to it in his own fashion. 



Note J, Page 51. 

I transcribe a passage from Denis (Idees Morales, &c., i. 
369), in which he signalizes the effect of the Macedonian 
conquest on the speculations of Greek philosophy, and 
especially of the Stoic : — 

' Alexandre avait essaye de faire un seul peuple des Grrecs 
et des barbares, et de les unir dans une vaste communaute de 



188 NOTES. 

droits, d'interets, de langage, et de civilisation. Le Stoicism e 
semble avoir herite de I'esprit universel qui aniraait le heros 
dans sa conquete. Je le sais, I'idee seule de I'honnete pouvait 
conduire un esprit juste et rigoureux a concevoir I'unite du 
genre humain, et tons les devoirs ou les droits qui en derivent. 
Car lorsqu'on n'apprecie les hommes que par leur capacite 
naturelle pour la vertu, toutes les distinctions et toutes les 
inegalites disparaissent : il n'y a plus de Grrecs ni de barbares, 
de maitres ni d'esclaves ; il n'y a que des etres raisonnables 
qui, possedant tous la liberte a un egal degre, sont tons 
soumis a la meme loi universelle. Mais pourquoi Zenon, 
qui n'etait peut-etre qu'un esprit mediocre, a-t-il eu des vues 
plus larges et plus humaines que les grands esprits qui 
I'avaient precede ? C'est que, pour tirer les consequences 
du principe moral, il n'avait pas besoin de faire violence a 
ses prejuges, ni de s'elever beaucoup au-dessus de la realite : 
il lui suffisait, au contraire, d'ouvrir les yeux et de regarder 
les faits. 

* A cette epoque, un Grrec retrouvait partout la Grrece, sur 
les cotes de I'ltaiie meridionale, en Sicile, a Pergame, a 
Alexandrie, a Seleucie, a Babylone, dans une partie de 
I'Europe, et presque dans toute I'Asie jusqu'aux bords du 
Gauge et de I'lndus. II pouvait done se croire a juste titre 
non plus citoyen de Sparte ou d'Athenes, mais citoyen de 
I'univers. La vanite pouvait encore le separer du barbare ; 
mais les haines et les animosites, qui entretenaient aupara- 
vant les prejuges nationaux, s'eteignaient de plus en plus 
dans un commerce et des relations de tous les jours. On vit 
bientot, j usque dans les ecoles des philosophes, une image de 
cette societe melee qui venait de toutes les contrees de la terre. 
Comme toutes les conditions se rencontraient dans le Portique 
et que, selon le mot de Timon, " une nuee de Penestes ou de 
serfs et de gueux," tels que le manoeuvre Cleanthe et I'es- 
clave Persee, s'y pressaient a cote des citoyens les plus riches 
et les mieux nes : de meme on voyait a cote des vrais Grrecs 
une foule d'hommes de toute nation, partis de Tyr, de 
Carthage, d'Alexandrie, ou d'Antioche pour se former dans 



NOTES. 189 

Athenes a la sagesse hellenique. Le fondateiir dii Stoicisme 
n'etait lui-meme qu'un etranger, et ses ennemis lui repro- 
chaient sottement son origine phenicienne. Les hommes, 
jusqu'alors separes les uns des aiitres par la distance ou par 
la haine, se rencontraient enfin pacifiqiiement et apprenaient 
a se connaitre. La verite et la vertii ne paraissaient plus en- 
fermees dans les bornes d'une cite ou d'une nation ; Ton 
racontait mille merveilles sur les moeurs, sur les lois, sur la 
religion et sur la philosopbie des peuples lointains, qu'avait 
a peine entrevues les compagnons d' Alexandre; on allait 
meme jusqu'a rabaisser la science des Grrecs devant la 
sagesse de ces Indiens, dont les austerites remplissaient 
Zenon d'admiration, et dont le mepris pour la vie lui faisait 
dire qu'un Bracbmane, mourant tranquillement sur le bucber, 
lui en apprenait plus sur la patience et sur le courage que 
toutes les argumentations des pbilosopbes. La fusion entre 
les idees commenpait avec la fusion entre les peuples : les 
G-recs retrouvaient, ou croyaient retrouver, partout le berceau 
de leurs dieux et de leurs croyances ; et deja le juif Aristobule, 
dont I'exemple devait etre suivi par tant d'Orientaux, alterait 
et la Bible et les dogmes de la philosopbie grecque, pour 
demontrer qu'Aristote, Platon et Pytbagore n'avaient fait 
que piller Moise et les propb^tes. Le cosmopolitisme etait 
partout, mais obscur et indecis encore comme les vagues 
pressentiments de I'instinct. II devint une tbeorie aussi 
claire que fortement arretee sous les mains de Zenon et de 
ses disciples. Mais ce n'etait, je le repete, qu'une con- 
sequence naturelle des grands evenements qui venaient de 
cbanger la face du monde. Alexandre avait voulu, dans sa 
gigantesque entreprise, faire du monde entier un seul empire, 
et malgre la mort qui vint si vite interrompre ses desseins, 
malgre le demembrement de sa conquete, il avait jusqu'a un 
certain point reussi : il avait laisse la Grece dans I'Asie, le 
mouvement dans I'immobilite, la vie dans la mort, la 
civilisation dans la barbaric. L'audace du conquerant a 
passe dans les speculations des pbilosopbes : Zenon, lui aussi, 
medite une republique universelle, la grande republique des 



100 NOTES. 

intelligences, avec Dieu pour maitre, et sa pensee eternelle 
pour conduite et pour loi. 

* Que la republique de Platon, ce reve si vante, est loin de 
la grandeur d'une telle conception ! ' As far, one might 
say, as in its historic development, the national Church of 
Judaism from the Catholic Church of Christendom. 

M. Denis, after the manner of the French school of 
history, assumes without question Alexander's personal aims 
and aspirations. On this difficult subject a soberer criticism 
will perhaps suspend its judgment. The effect of his 
conquests is undeniable, whatever views or no views we may 
attribute to the conqueror himself. Droysen, after writing 
the political history of the successors of Alexander, has 
entered on the great subject to which it naturally leads, and 
in his Geschichte des Hellenismus promises to unfold in all 
their magnificence the features of the momentous social 
revolution which followed upon Alexander's conquests, and 
formed the most general preparation for the reception of 
Christianity. 



Note K, Page 54. 

I quote again from M. Denis, from whom I have borrowed 
this contrast between Plato (with whom I class the Stoics and 
others who derived from him) and the earlier philosophers 
(Idees Morales, i. p. 126) : — 

*Qu'on remue tant qu'on voudra les institutions et les 
moeurs de la G-rece, on n'y trouvera jamais la trace des 
speculations presque mystiques de Platon. Meme si on le 
compare a Xenophon et a Socrate, non plus aux idees popu- 
laires, mais aux doctrines philosophiques, quelle profonde 
difference ! Ce qui fait le prix de la temperance aux yeux 
de Socrate et de Xenophon, c'est qu'elle nous met a meme 
d'agir virilement ; ce qui en fait le prix pour Platon, c'est 
qu'elle nous detache du corps et de la terre. Le courage, tel 
que le conpoit Socrate, a pour but de nous procurer I'empire, 
ou tout au moins la liberte. II n'est pour Platon que le 



XOTES. 191 

complement de la temperance, qui nous apprend a mourir aii 
corps, au monde et a nous-memes. Je sais que Socrate, en 
tant que philosoplie, estimait sm'tout dans la temperance et 
le courage la liberte interieure qu'ils nous assurent. Mais 
aurait-il compris, et son bon sens aurait-il approuve ce que 
Platon appelle si energiquement la meditation de la mort? 
Ce qu'il y avait dans Socrate de plus original apres son carac- 
tere, c'etaient ses idees sur la sagesse et sur I'amour ; mais 
qu'elles paraissent timides et terre a terre a cote de celles de 
son eleve ! II ne suffit pas a Platon de comprendre ce qu'il 
y a de rationnel dans la nature de I'homme et dans celle 
de I'univers ; il aspire a la vision face a face du divin. 
L'amour n'est plus pour lui cette amitie qui doit unir les 
hommes par les liens de la vertu et des bienfaits ; c'est la 
passion de I'Eternel, regret d'un monde meilleur, et pressenti- 
ment de notre future immortalite. Ces idees et ces aspira- 
tions paraissent si etranges dans un Grrec, qu'on croit partout 
y reconnaitre I'inspiration de TOrient.' 

The relations of Plato with Zoroaster and the Brahmins 
are matters of conjecture only ; but of the influence of these 
and other teachers upon the later Greek philosophy of Zeno 
and his successors there can be no question. 

Note L, Page 55. 

I would not be supposed to merge Judaism in the mass of 
national religions to which this language may be justly 
applied. The circumstances which render the Eevelation to 
the Jews essentially a religion by itself, however similar in 
some outward features to the common t}'pe of the Heathen 
cults, require, and have often received, special and separate 
treatment. One great and vital distinction between them is 
that Judaism, alone as far as we learn, presents the character 
of an exclusive national religion, combined "^dth the worship 
of one God. All Heathen nations believed in then- own god 
or gods as peculiar to themselves, and opposed to other gods 
of their enemies. There are numerous traces, indeed, of a 



192 NOTES. 

teDdency among the Jews to this false but attractive concep- 
tion ; but it is distinctly repudiated by the real genius of the 
Mosaic Kevelation. I find this remark in Colani's Jesus- 
Christ et les Croyances Messianiques, p. 3 : — 

' La grande originalite des Israelites consiste precisement 
en ceci, qu'ils ont cru avec une egale energie a I'unite de 
I'Etre divin et a sa predilection pour leur race : il n'y a 
d'autre Dieu que Jehova, et Jehova a fait une alliance eternelle 
avec Jacob. La conviction etonnante qu'ont eue certains 
hommes d'etre si bien elus du Tres-Haut qu'Il n'aurait pu se 
passer d'eux, le peuple juif I'a eue, en tant que peuple.' 

Note M, Page 59. 

On the opinions of the Stoics regarding the Future Life, I 
refer again to Denis {Idees Morales, i. 359): — 

' Doit-on ajouter a cette morale religieuse le dogme de 
I'immortalite de Tame. Si je ne me trompe, les Stoiciens, 
tant ceux de la seconde dpoque que ceux de la premiere, 
n'ont jamais insiste fortement sur cette idee consolante. 
Caton se tue en lisant le Phedon de Platon, et non pas un 
livre de quelqu'un de ses bons amis les Stoiciens. Epictete, 
Marc-Aurele et Seneque ne parle qu'incidemment, et non 
pas meme sans reserve, de I'immortalite. Jamais ils n'en font 
le but et I'encouragement de la vertu. On ne pent cependant 
douter qu'ils ne I'aient admise, je ne dis pas comme une 
opinion etablie et fermement arretee, mais au moins comme 
une grande et belle esperance. Parmi les principaux repre- 
sentants du Portique, Panetius est le seul qui nous soit 
signale comme niant toute espece de vie future, malgre sa 
predilection pour Platon. . . . Quant aux autres Stoi- 
ciens, leurs opinions peuvent sembler etranges, mais elles 
indiquent evidemment la permanence possible de I'ame. "lis 
avanpait," nous dit Ciceron, " que les ames continuent a exister 
apres qu'elles sont sorties du corps, mais qu'elles ne doivent 
point toujours durer, nous gratifiant ainsi non de I'immor- 
talite, mais d'une longue vie, a pen pres comme des corneilles." 



I^OTES. 193 

Biogene nous explique ces mots de Ciceron. Selon lui, 
Cleanthe pensait que les ames se conservent jusqu'a la 
conflagration du monde, c'est-a-dire, jusqu'au moment ou 
I'univers rentre dans le sein de Jupiter d'ou il est sorti, de 
sorte que toutes les ames, celles des hommes et celles des 
dieux, doivent un jour se perdre et s'aneantir dans la sub- 
stance de I'Etre premier. Mais Clirysippe n'accordait cette 
permanence et cette duree qu^aux ames des gens de bien et 
des sages.* II parait done penser avec Platon, que I'ame 
n'emporte avec elle dans I'autre vie que ses actes intellectuels 
et moraux. L'ame survit done au corps, du moins lorsqu'elle 
a ete vertueuse ; et selon Chrysippe, elle conserve les vertus et 
les verites dont elle s'est ornee. Mais sur quelles preuves les 
Stoiciens aflSrmaient-ils cette espece d'immortalite ? Je n'en 
trouve qu'une seule ; s'il faut en croire Seneque, nous devons 
reofarder comme tout stoicien I'arD^ument du consentement 
unanime des peuples. ... Si les Stoiciens se bornaient 
reellement a cette raison, j'en conclurais qu'ils ne voulaient 
pas abandonner I'immortalite de Tame, parce qu'elle est une 
opinion salutaire, mais aussi qu'elle ne faisait point partie de 
leurs dogmes arretes et philosophiques. lis ne la rattachaient 
pas d'ailleurs au principe moral. Car c'est pour eux une 
idee invariable que la vertu se suffit a elle-meme, et qu'elle 
trouve en soi sa recompense, comrae le vice renferme en 
sol sa propre punition. Or, si les bons avaient du rece- 
voir dans une autre vie le prix de leurs vertus, pourquoi 

* [Comp. Plutarch, Be Pladt. Philos. iv. 7. ' Ol SrwiKoi, i^iovaav rSov o-w/^arcoi' 
viroipepicrOaL rr/v [xeu arrOevecTTepav afxa to7s (TvyKpifxacn yeveaSai, tovt-qv 5' eTi/at 
Tftji/ diratSeuTWJ' ' r^v S' lax^poT^pav, o'la 4ar\ irepl rovs aocpovs, Ka\ fJ-d'xpi ttjs iKirv- 
pdlxreus.' Seneca, Consol. ad Marc. 26. ' Et quum tempus advenerit, quo se 
raundus renovaturus exstiuguat : Tiribus ista sese suis csedent, et sidera sideri- 
hus incurrent, et omni flagrante materia, uno igne, quicquid nunc ex disposito 
lucet, ardebit. Nos quoque, felices animse, et seterna sortitse, quum Deo risiun 
erit iterum ista moliri, labentibus cunctis, et ipsae parra ruinee iugentis accessio, 
in antiqua elementa rertemur.' Comp. also Epict. Diss. iii. 13. 1. Eusebii 
PrcB'par. Evangel, xv. 20. ' T5 Se Siafxeveiv tos \|/ux«s ovtw Xeyovaiv, '6ti dta/JLei/ofiev 
•^jueTs \i/vxo.l yeuofxevoi, tov (rwjxaros xuipiaQ^vros Koi et? eAarroj fj.eTafia\6uTos ovaiav 
TTjv T^s rpuxv^' Tas 5e tuv a(pp6vwu Koi aXoyuv (dowv \pvxas avi'airoWiadai to7s 





194 NOTES. 

les mechants n'auraient-ils aussi re^u le prix de leiirs 
actions mauvaises? Mais ni Cleanthe, ni Chrysippe, ni 
leurs disciples grecs on romains de I'epoqne imperiale 
ne paraissent avoir admis cette necessite soit de la recom- 
pense, soit de I'expiation; . . . pour eux toute mau- 
vaise action porte en elle-meme son chatiment, et le vice 
ne parait heureux qu'aux insenses. lis ne voulaient pas 
d'ailleurs qu'on dirigeat les hommes par la crainte des 
dieux et de leurs vengeances. " Non," disait Chrysippe, " ce 
n'est pas un bon moyen de detourner les hommes de I'injus- 
tice que la crainte des dieux." II ne faut done pas traiter 
les hommes comme des enfants a qui Ton fait peur, et il n'y 
a de veritable moralite que lorsqu'on aime et qu'on embrasse 
la vertu pour elle-meme et par raison. Voila le motif, je 
n'en doute pas, pour lequel les Stoiciens parlaient si peu de 
I'immortalite de Fame, et ne se riaient pas moins que les Epi- 
curiens de tout ce qu'on debite sur les enfers. Platon aime 
a insister sur les croyances populaires ; il est politique autant 
que moraliste. Les Stoiciens ne sont plus que moralistes; ils 
blament Platon d'avoir eu recours a des fables et presqu'a 
une fraude, parce que le philosophe ne doit pas remplacer 
la verite et la raison par I'imagination, ni la moralite par 
I'egoisme et la peur.' 

Note N, Page 60. 

M. Denis, Idees Morales^ i. 344 : — ' Si la loi n'est que la 
droite raison, elle n'existe que pour les etres raisonnables. 
D'oii il suit qu'il n'y a aucun droit naturel entre les hommes et 
les betes. Mais il en existe un entre les hommes, et nul ne 
pent le violer gans crime et sans abjurer la nature, puisque 
tons participent a la raison. Or, c'est cette participation, cette 
sorte de parente rationnelle, qui est le fondement de la justice 
et de la communaute sociale. II y a plus : le meme droit 
unit les hommes et les dieux, puisqu'ils ont une origine et 
une nature communes. II les rattache les uns et les autres 
au principe de la nature et de la verite, a Jupiter, d'oti emanent 



NOTES. 195 

toute justice et toute raison. Que si c'est la communaute de 
droit qui constitue TEtat, il n'y a done qu'un seal Etat, comme 
il n'y a qu'une loi universelle : c'est le monde, republique des 
hommes et des dieux. " II n'y a pas plus d'Etats distingues 
par nature," disait Aristote, '^ qu'il n'y a naturellement de mai- 
sons, d'heritages ou de boutiques de serruriers et de chirur- 
giens." Done tons les Etats de la terre ne le sont que de nom ; 
le monde seul Test de fait et de droit. Aussi les Stoiciens ne 
regardaient-ils pas comme des magistrats ceux qui ne doivent 
leurs titres et leur autorite qu'aux suffrages du sort ou de la 
foule. Le seul legislateur, le seul magistrate le seul juge, le 
seul souverain legitime est le sage. De la ce paradoxe que 
le sage seul est libre et citoj^en, tandis que les insenses ne 
sont que des exiles, des etrangers et des esclaves. II y a un 
grand sens sous ces etranges paroles. . . . Nous trouvons 
dans cette fiction une haute pensee philosophique, I'idee de la 
societe des esprits, dont Dieu est le pere et le souverain, Et 
quand nous voyons que le Stoicisme admettait dans cette cite 
inferieure les esclaves si meprises des anciens, nous oublions 
volontiers ses imaginations antiphysiques, pour saluer la pre- 
miere apparition du droit et de Thumanite. . . .' M. Denis 
adds in a note, a little farther on : — ^ La theorie de la loi et 
de la cite universelles a ete donnee par quelques modernes 
comme appartenant surtout a Ciceron et aux Stoiciens poste- 
rieurs. C'est une des plus graves erreurs historiques. Quand 
je n'aurais pas les temoignages de Plutarque, de Clement 
d'Alexandrie, de Philon et de bien d'autres qui attribuent 
cette theorie au Stoicisme en general, je saurais par Ciceron 
meme que c'est la une theorie toute stoicienne. Dans les 
Lois il avoue qu'il expose les idees du Portique. Dans les 
traites des Fins, des Devoirs, de la Nature des Dieux, et dans 
les Academiques, il donne cette theorie non pour sienne, mais 
comme appartenant a Zenon et Chrysippe. J'en dis autant 
de Seneque, et d'Epictete, qui en parlent toujours comme 
d'une chose reconnue. Et n'est-il pas question de la loi unique 
et universelle dans I'hymne meme de Cleanthe ? ' 

The beatification, so to say, of the true philosophers 

o 2 



196 lifOTES. 

hereafter, and the spiritual communion of the saints of Stoicism 
in heaven, is a well-known dogma of the school, though not 
altogether peculiar to it ; for which it is sufficient to cite the 
verses of Lucan, Pharsal. viii. init.: — 

' Quodque patet terras inter lunaeque meatus 
Semidei Manes habitant, quos ignea virtus, 
Innocuos vitag, patientes setheris imi 
Fecit, et asternos animam coUegit in orbes. 
Non ilHc auro positi, non thure sepulti 
Perveniunt. Illic postquam se lumine vero 
Implevit, stellasque vagas miratus et astra 
Fixa polis, vidit quanta sub nocte jaceret 
Nostra dies. . . .' 



Note 0, Page 62. 

St. Augustin, De vera Religione, i. 3 : — 

' Si enim Plato ipse viveret, et me interrogantem non 
aspernaretur ; vel potius, si quis ejus discipulus, eo ipso tem- 
pore quo vivebat, eum interrogaret, cum sibi ab illo persua- 
deretur, non corporeis oculis, sed pura mente veritatem videri : 
cui qusecumque anima inhsesisset, eam beatam fieri atque 
perfectam : ad quam percipiendam mihil magis impedire quam 
vitam libidinibus deditam et falsas imagines rerum sensibi- 
lium, qua3 nobis ab hoc sensibili mundo per corpus impressse, 
varias opiniones erroresque generarent: quamobrem sanan- 
dum esse animum ad intuendam incommutabilem rerum for- 
mam, et eodem modo semper se habentem atque undique sui 
similem pulcritudinem, nee distentam locis, nee tempore 
variatam, sed unum atque idem omni ex parte servantem, 
quam non crederent esse homines, cum ipsa vere summeque 
sit : csetera nasci, occidere, fluere, labi, et tamen in quantum 
sunt, ab illo aeterno Deo per ejus veritatem fabricata constare : 
in quibus animse tantum rationali et Intel lectuali datum est, 
ut ejus seternitatis contemplatione perfruatur, atque afficiatur 
orneturque ex ea, seternamque vitam possit mereri : sed dum 
nascentium atque transeuntium rerum amore ac dolore sau- 



NOTES. 197 

ciatur, et dedita consuetudiai hnjus vitse atque sensibus 
corporis, inanibus evanescit imaginibus, irridet eos qui dicunt 
esse aliquid quod nee istis videatur oculis, nee ullo phantas- 
mate cogitetur, sed mente sola et intelligentia cerni queat :— 
cum hsec ergo a magistro sibi persuaderentur, si ex eo 
qusereret ille discipulus, utrum si quisquam existeret vir 
magnus atque divinus^ qui talia populis persuaderet credenda 
Faltem, si percipere non valerent, aut si qui possent percipere, 
non pravis opinionibus multitudinis implicati, vulgaribus 
obruerentur erroribus, eum divinis honoribus dignum judi- 
caret : — responderet, credo, ille, non posse hoc ab homine fieri, 
nisi quern forte ipsa Dei Virtus atque Sapientia ab ipsa rerum 
natura exceptum, nee hominum magisterio, sed intima illu- 
minatione ab incunabulis illustratum, tanta honestaret gratia, 
tanta firmitate roboraret, tanta denique maj estate subveheret, 
ut omnia contemnendo quae pravi homines cupiunt, et omnia 
perpetiendo quae horrescunt, et omnia faciendo quse mirantur, 
genus humanum ad tarn salubrem fidem summo amore atque 
auctoritate converteret.' 

Note P, Page 79. 

I cannot better illustrate this subject than by extracts from 
Amedee Thierry's ' Tableau de I'Empire Eomain,' one chapter 
of which (p. 273, foil.) is entitled ' Marche vers TUnite par le 
Droit':— 

' Oil se decele avec un surcroit d'evidence cette revolution 
[marche vers I'unite] dont nous retrouvons partout les ves- 
tiges, c'est dans I'histoire du droit remain. . . . On I'y suit 
pas a pas, depuis la grossiere organisation des sujets de 
Romulus, jusqu'au jour ou, de transformations en transfor- 
mations, ce droit local, devenu une formule applicable a 
toutes les societes, et, comme on Fa dit, la raison ecrite, nous 
annonce a son tour, par la voix de la science juridique, que la 
petite association des bords du Tibre est devenue aussi I'asso- 
ciation universelle. 

' Le droit primitif de Rome se montre a nous en effet avec 



198 NOTES. 

un caractere de rudesse tout a fait original. La famille y est 
constituee eur des bases sans analogic ailleurs, les juriscon- 
sultes remains eux-memes nous Paffirment : ces bases sont 
la jouissance paternelle et la puissance mariiale, qui se 
rattache etroitement a la premiere. 

' Dans cette organisation Fesprit aristocratique domine, la 
famille a sa regie particuliere, son autorite absolue. . . Le 
droit de propriete, de domaine, est un droit exclusif romain, 
au moins quant aux immeubles ; I'etranger n'y participe qu'en 
vertu d'un privilege special, comme le Latin et I'ltalien. . . 

' Ce droit si fortement marque au cachet du patriciat, le 
patriciat s'etait reserve le privilege de I'interpreter. II avait 
seul le clef de cette procedure a moitie religieuse, de ces jours 
fastes et nefastes, de ces gestes symboliques, de ces paroles 
fatales, qui dominaient la loi. Mais les mysteres du sacerdoce 
juridique furent enfin devoiles. . . . Le droit passe des-lors 
de I'etat de tradition et de doctrine occulte a Fetat de science. 

'Mais tandis que, dans sa sphere propre et dans son 
developpement normal, la jurisprudence civile eprouvait ces 
grands changements, il s'etait ouvert en dehors d'elle une 
carriere de discussion bien autrement libre, un champ de 
progres bien autrement vaste, par la creation de la pre- 
ture 

' La preture eut pour objet Fadministration de la justice. 
Papinien en definit les attributions principal es par les trois 
mots, aider, suppleer, corriger le droit civil : aider la loi en 
Finterpretant quand elle etait obscure ; la suppleer quand 
elle etait muette ; la corriger quand elle choquait dans 
Fapplication le sentiment naturel d'equite, ou quand elle ne 
concordait plus avec les besoins contemporains et le change- 
ment des mceurs 

*La juridiction pretorienne avait eu, des le principe, un 
grand probleme a resoudre, celui-ci : quel droit etait applicable 
aux etrangers ? .... Or la loi romaine etait, dans toute son 
etendue, le patrimoine du Eomain ; dans certaines propor- 
tions determinees, le privilege du I^atin ou de FItalien ; mais 
le provincial, mais le sujet d'un gouvernement vassal, quand 



NOTES. 199 

ils se trouvaient a Rome, ne pouvaient invoquer aucune loi 
ecrite. Quelle legislation auraient-ils reclamee comme leur 
bien? .... 

' La difficulte fut trancliee comme elle devait I'etre : le 
preteur, dans la necessite de I'endre justice sans loi preeta- 
blie, fit la loi lui-meme ; son edit, interpretatif du droit civil 
quant au Remain, fut, quant a I'etranger, un acte legislatif 
pur. Et lorsque le preteur des etrangers vit se presser autour 
de son tribunal des representants du monde entier, Europeens, 
Africains, Asiatiques, liommes civilises, hommes barbares, 
quand il rendit des sentences qui retentissaient bientot d'ltalie 
en Grrece, et de Grrece en Asie, le droit pretorien prit une 
importance, la dignite pretorienne un eclat. . . . 

* Cette obligation de tout construire imposait I'obligation de 
chercher et de connaitre beaucoup. On se livre avec empresse- 
ment a Fetude des legislations qui regissaient les plus con- 
siderables, et les plus eclairees des nations conquises. . . . 

' Ce ne fut meme la qu'un premier degre dans le travail 
de la generalisation. Des donnees de I'experience, I'esprit 
s'elanpa vers les speculations abstraites. II voulut remonter 
aux notions eternelles du juste et de I'injuste pour en redes- 
cendre, avec des preceptes et des regies de philosophic morale 
superieures a tons les faits juridiques, au droit des gens comme 
au droit civil ; et le droit naturel se forma a laide de la 
philosophic grecque, a I'aide surtout du Stoicisme, dont la 
doctrine ferme et elevee convenait bien a la gravite des 
lois 

' Grace a cette science nouvelle, I'etranger eut sa loi qu'il 
put invoquer, et qui prit de jour en jour plus de stabilite 

dans I'edit du preteur C'est ainsi qu'il se crea un 

domaine du droit des gens, qui vint se placer a cote du 

domaine quiritaire; une propriete pretorienne, etc 

On aper9oit d'un coup d'ceil quelle alteration ce melange dut 
apporter dans le droit national. Le droit pretorien, devenu 
sjnonyme d'equite, representa le bon sens humain et la 
science philosophique, en opposition a I'interpretation et a la 
routine du droit civil 



200 Is'OTES. 

* C'est a partir de cette epoque ' [of the edictum perpetiium 
of Hadrian and the edictum provinciale of M. Aurelius] ' que 
le droit romain, fonde sur ses deux bases, egalement solides 
desormais, la loi des Douze Tables et I'edit perpetuel, se 
developpe avec le plus de regularite. La lutte feconde des 
ecoles avait produit ses fruits ; les idees s'etaient fixees ; la 
conciliation da monde romain, qui marchait alors a si grands 
pas, accelerait la conciliation du droit civil et du droit des 
gens, dans les theories de la science. . '. . . 

^ Les travaux des jurisconsultes contemporains de Sep time et 
d' Alexandre Severe nous montrent I'alliance du droit quiri- 
taire et du droit universel dans son plus beau developpement. 
A mesure qu'on s'eloigne de ce siecle, I'element national 
decroit, son sens antique devient de moins en rooins compris, 
son cachet s'efPace; et dans la legislation de Justinien, 
d'elagage en elagage, le droit romain se reduit a peu pres au 
droit des gens 

' Au frontispice de ce grand edifice on lit des lignes telles 
que celles-ci : — 

'"L Justitia est constans et perpetua voluntas jus suum 
cuique tribuendo, Ulpian. 1. x» Dig. de Just et Jut, 

' " 2. Jurisprudentia est divinarum atque humanarum 
rerum notitia ; justi atque injusti scientia. Ulpian. 1. x. Dig. 
eod. tit. 

' " 3. Veluti erga deum religio ; ut parentibus et patriae 
pareamus. Pompon. 1. ii. Dig. de Just, et Jut. 

' *' 4. Utpote cum jure naturali omnes liberi nascerentur . . . 
sed postea quam jure gentium servitus invasit. Ulpian. 1. iv. 
Dig. de Just et Jut. 

' '' Servitus est constitutio juris gentium qua quis dominio 
alieno contra naturam subjicitur. Florent* 1. ix. Dig. de 
Stat. horn. 

' " 5. Juris prsecepta sunt hsec : Honeste vivere, alterum non 
Isedere, suum cuique tribuere. Ulpian. 1. x. Dig. de Just 
et Jut " 

' C'est dans ce dernier etat que le droit romain nous est 
arrive, et qu'il a fonde les moeurs des nations modernes 



NOTES. 201 

sorties de la societe romaine. II y tient une place immense ; 
et cette place s'agrandira encore a mesure que les restes de la 
barbarie feodale disparaitront en Europe, et que la civilisation 
s'etendra. " Si les lois romaines," dit Bossuet, " ont paru si 
saintes que leur majeste subsiste encore, malgre la mine de 
I'Empire, c'est que le bon sens, qui est le maitre de la vie 
humaine, y regno partout, et qu'on ne voit nulle part une 
plus belle application des principes de I'equite naturelle." ' 

These extracts may suffice to indicate the nature of 
M. Thierry's argument, which well deserves a more complete 
study. It must lead to the conclusion that the expansion of 
Eoman law was caused not by the influence of individual 
statesmen and legislators, in advance of their age, nor by the 
more general diffusion of philosophical views, nor, again, by 
the humanizing tendency of Christian sentiments. It was 
mainly at least the work of natural circumstances ; it flowed 
from the necessity of the position of a conquering people in 
the centre of a great aggregation of subject communities. 
The attempt to trace every liberal advance in Eoman ideas 
of law to Christian influence must be regarded as un- 
successful. The rhetoric of a writer like Chateaubriand on 
such a subject may be dismissed as frivolous. Hugo, in his 
' History of Eoman Law,' refers to a work of Ehoer directed 
especially to this point, w^hich does not appear to have 
deserved much attention. Hugo himself considers the in- 
fluence of Christianity in this matter to have been, ' on the 
Avhole less than might have been expected ' (§ 382), a phrase 
wanting in clearness and precision. More recently, M. Trop- 
lono- has written his work ' De I'lnfluence du Christianisme sur 
le Droit Civil des Eomains,' in which the subject is treated 
with ample learning, and w^ith all the neatness and logical 
acumen of a great French scholar, except for the original 
confusion, as it seems to me, between cause and effect. In 
the main, I should contend that the expansion of Eoman law 
led to a just appreciation of Christianity, rather than the 
converse. 



202 NOTES. 



Note Q, Page 83. 



I have pointed out some particulars in which the teaching 
of St. Paul seems to be imbued with the ideas of Eoman 
jurisprudence. Seeking to place before his readers the true 
relation in which the believer stands to Grod, he adopts 
significant illustrations from a subject familiar to himself, 
and familiar perhaps at the same time to those whom he im- 
mediately addresses. 

1. The mission of our Lord Jesus Christ for the salvation 
of man is described in Scripture in two ways ; sometimes as 
being done of His own will, sometimes as the accomplishment 
of a task imposed on Him by the Father. It will be found 
that while St. John and St. Peter represent it in the former 
light, St Paul introduces the notion of the Father's will 
controlling Him, and insists strongly upon it. Thus we have 
in St. John's Gospel, xviii. 37: *To this end was I born, 
and for this cause came I into the world ; that I should bear 
witness of the truth.' 1 Epist. iii. 16 : ' Because He laid down 
his life for us.' St. Peter, 1. iii. 18 : * Christ also hath once 
suffered for sins, the just for the unjust.' Comp. iv. 1. In 
one place St. John passes on towards the other view, where 
he says (1. iv. 9) : * In this was manifested the love of Grod 
towards us, because that Grod sent His only begotten Son into 
the world that we might live through Him.' But in St. Paul, 
the view of Christ's work being one of obedience to the 
Father becomes more prominent. Eomans iii. 25 : ' Whom 
Grod hath set forth to be a propitiation.' Y. 19: * As by 
one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the 
obedience of one shall many be made righteous.' Gral. i. 4 : 
^Who gave Himself for our sins, . . . according to the 
will of G-od the Father.' Phil. ii. 8 : ^ Who . . . humbled 
Himself and became obedient unto dea,th.' Col. i. 19: 'It 
pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell; and 
having made peace through the blood of His cross, b}^ Him 
to reconcile all things unto Himself.' Heb. v, 8 : ' Though 



JS^OTES. 203: 

He were a son, yet learned He obedience by the things which 
He suffered.' Comp. x. 7. It is not meant that there is any 
real discrepancy in the two views here indicated, but that the 
one apostle dwells more upon the obedience of Christ, the 
others on the spontaneousness of His sacrifice. 

But this notion of the absolute subjection of the Son to 
the Father agrees exactly with the w*ell-known principle of 
Koman law involved in the patria potestas, or authority of 
the father. Down to a late period of the Empire, the law 
of the Twelve Tables, which gave the father powder over the 
person and property of his son, even after he had come of 
age, continued, at least in theory, unabated. Grains, under 
the Antonines, still speaks of it as peculiar to Eoman law 
{Institut. i. 55) : — *Item in potestate nostra suntliberi nostri 
quos justis nuptiis procreavimus, quod jus proprium civium 
Komanorum est ; fere enim nulli alii sunt homines, qui 
talem in filios sues habent potestatem, qualem nos habemus.' 
He adds : ' nee me prseterit G-alatarum gentem credere in 
potestate parentum liberos esse.' 

It is curious at least that these Galatians should be the 
persons whom St. Paul addressed in the following language 
(Gral. iv. 1) : ' Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, 
differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all ; 
but is under tutors and governors until the time appointed 
of the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in 
bondage under the elements of the world. But when the 
fulness of time was come, Grod sent forth His Son,' &c. So 
in Eomans viii. 21, the ' bondage of corruption ' seems to 
allude to the subjection of the Roman son to his earthly 
father. 

2. In the Epistle to the G-alatians, iii. 15, we read : aSsX^olf 
Kara avOpwirov Xeyw, 6/jl(os avdpcoTrov KS/cvpco/jLsvTjv hLaOrjKrjv 
ovSsls dOsTSL 7] iTrLSiardcrasrat, where the apostle declares 
that he is making use of an illustration from secular customs, 
and seems to refer to the Roman law of wills, accordingr to 
which the testator, after certain formalities fulfilled, could 
neither revoke nor alter his disposition of his property. Thus 



204 TsOTES. 

when we are told by Suetonius that Csesar, and subsequently 
Augustus, placed their testaments in the hands of the Vestal 
Virgins [Jul. 83, Oct. 101), we are to understand that they 
thereby renounced the power of cancelling or adding a codicil 
to them. Comp. Schleusner in voce hiaOqKrj. See also the 
above-cited passage from the same epistle, iv. 1. 

Again, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, there seems to be 
such a reference to the Eoman law of testation, where, 
however, the writer apparently mixes up the ideas of a cove- 
nant and of a will. Hehr. ix. 15-17 : koX Sia tovto hiadrjKrjs 
KaivTjs fjL:(rLT7]s scTTLV, K. T. \. Ho had bceu describing Jesus 
Christ as the mediator or intermediate instrument of a new 
covenant, BiaOrjKr]^ as opposed to the old covenant made by 
Grod with Moses ; but he goes on to introduce the idea of a 
^vill, suggested apparently by the death of Christ, the word 
StaO)JKrj having the double signification: ottov yap ^laOiJKT], 
ddvarov avayicrj <j>spsa6aL rov SiaOsfisvov. SiaOrj/cj] jap 
sttI vsKpols fis^aia, eirsl /uLij irors lcr')(ysL ors ^rj 6 Biads/jusvos ; 
which Schleusner explains: 'ut testamentum ratum fiat 
necesse est ut mors testatoris probetur judicialiter. . . Sic 
proferre, ut sit probare coram judice, legitur apud Cic. pro 
Rose. Amer. c. 24.' This forensic use here of the word (f)sps- 
aOat is remarked by Hammond, and is generally admitted. 

This coincidence in the use of forensic language in an 
acknowledged epistle of St. Paul's, and another which must 
at least be regarded as Pauline, is worth remarking, particu- 
larly when we consider how peculiar the forms of testa- 
mentary law were to the Eomans. * To the Eomans,' says 
Mr. Maine, ^belongs preeminently the credit of inventing 
the will. . . . It is doubtful whether a true power of testa- 
tion was known to any original society except the Eomans. 
Eudimentary forms of it occur here and there, but most of 
them are not exempt from the suspicion of a Eoman origin. 
The Athenian will was, no doubt, indigenous, but then, as 
will appear presently, it was only an inchoate testament . . . 
Similarly the rudimentary testament which (as I am in- 
formed) the Eabbinical Jewish law provides for, has been 



NOTES. 205 

attributed to contact with the Eomans. . . . The ori- 
ginal institutions of Jews have provided nowhere for the 
privileges of testatorship.' — Ancient Laiv, p. 194, foil. 

3. Upon these apparent illustrations from the Eoman law 
I should, however, lay little stress, were they not confirmed by 
an unquestionable reference in the use St. Paul makes of the 
idea of adoption. The spiritual connection of the true dis- 
ciple with God is repeatedly represented to us under the 
figure of sonship. This idea is brought prominently forward 
by St. John : as iu 1 iii. 1 : ha rsKva 6sov K\7]6a)fisv, ' that we 
should be called,' i.e., ' should be, sons of Grod.' v. 9 : o ysysi^- 
vTjiJisvos sfc Tov Osov. V. 10: TO. TSKva Tov Oeov. IV. 6 : iras 6 
ayaiTwv sk Oaov ysysvrjTat ; and elsewhere. But whereas St. 
John always represents this idea in its simple form, St. Paul, 
and St. Paul only, describes this sonship more artificially as 
adoptive. This view is set forth in a marked manner in the 
Epistle to the Eomans, viii. 14, foil. : 'As many as are led 
by the Spirit of Grod, they are the sons of Grod. For ye have 
not received the spirit of bondage again to fear ; but ye have 
received the Spirit of adoption whereby we cry Abba, Father. 
. . . ; 21 ; Because the creature itself also shall be delivered 
from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of 
the children of God. For we know that the whole creation 
groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And 
not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits 
of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, 
waiting for the adoption, to wdt, the redemption of our body." 
Now this illustration is not taken from any Jewish custom ; 
the law of Moses contains no provision for such a practice, 
nor is there any indication of its having obtained among the 
Jewish people. Adoption was an essentially Eoman usage, 
and was intimately connected with the Eoman ideas of family. 
The maintenance of the sacra xjrivata^ the domestic rites of 
the family, was regarded by the Eomans as a matter of deep 
political importauce, and their law accordingly described mi- 
nutely the forms under which, in default of natural heirs, 
the paterfamilias might thus prospectively secure it. The son 



206 XOTES. 

was considered ^s the absolute property of his father from 
his birth to his father's decease. In order to his being 
adopted out of his own family into that of another man, it 
was necessary that he should undergo a fictitious sale. But 
if a son was sold by his father and recovered his liberty, he 
fell again under the paternal dominion, and it was not until 
he had thus been sold, emancipatus, three times, that he was 
finally free from this paramount authority. Accordingly the 
adopter required that the fiction of sale should be repeated 
three times before he could be received into his new family 
and fall under the dominion of his new father. When, how- 
ever, these formalities had been complied with, the adopted 
son became incorporated in the family of his adopter, iden- 
tified as it were with his person, made one with him ; 
so that on the decease of the adopter he became not so 
much his representative as the perpetuator of his legal 
existence. He assumed also, on adoption, the burdens or 
privileges incident to the performance of the rites of his new 
family. He relinquished his former sacra, and attached him- 
self to those of his new parent. 

All this appears to have been in the apostle's mind when 
he addressed the Eoman disciples in the passage before us. 
The Spirit of Grod, he says, bears witness with our spirit, 
confers upon us an inward persuasion, that we are now, by 
adoption, the children of God, whereas we were before the 
children of some other father, the world, or the Evil One. 
But we are delivered from the bondage of corruption, from 
the state of filial subjection to this evil parent, and admitted 
to the glorious liberty of the happy children of a good and 
gracious father, even G-od. He goes on to insist on the hard- 
ness of the bondage of the son of a bad father (such as the 
world), his sighing and groaning for the blessed change which 
should henceforth ensue to him ; such an expectation or hope 
of escape as may often have been felt by the victims of the 
cruel law of Eome, and which is here likened to the hopes 
mankind might be supposed to feel of an escape at last from 
their bondage to the world, the flesh, and the devil. And how 



NOTES. 207 

was this escape to be effected ? Grod paid a price for it. As 
the Eoman adopter paid, or made as if he paid down copper 
weighed in the scale, so Grod gave His Son as a precious sacri- 
fice, as a ransom to the world or the Evil One, from whom He 
redeemed His adopted children. ' He spared not His own Son, 
but delivered Him up for us all.' Henceforth we become the 
elect, the chosen of G-od. 

The same illustration is indicated in a passage in Gralatiaus, 
iv. 3 : ^ When we were children we were in bondage under 
the elements of the world,' addicted to the sacra of our ori- 
ginal family; 'but when the fulness of the time was come, God 
sent forth His Son ... to redeem them that were under the 
law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. . . . How- 
beit,' it continues, 'when ye knew not God,' and were not 
enrolled in this family, 'ye did service unto them Avhich by 
nature are no gods. But now, after ye have known God . . . 
how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements,' such 
as the sacra of your former family, ' whereunto ye desire to 
be again in bondage ? ' 

The ' adoption of children ' is mentioned again in Ephesians 
i. o, where it seems to point to a recognised custom. Ephe- 
sus, it may be remarked, as the capital of the province and 
the residence of a proconsul's court, must have been familiar 
with the ordinary processes of the Eoman civil law. 

On the word ' Adoption,' the \vriter of the article in Smith's 
' Dictionary of the Bible ' says : ' St. Paul probably alludes to 
the Eoman custom of adoption, &c. . . The Jews themselves 
were unacquainted with the process of adoption; indeed, it 
would have been inconsistent with the regulations of the 
Mosaic law affecting the inheritance of property. The in- 
stances occasionally adduced as referring to the customs 
(Gen. XV. 8, xvi. 2, xxx. 5-9) are evidently not cases of adop- 
tion proper.' 



208 IS^OTES. 



Note E, Page 84. 

There seem to be some indications in the Scripture records 
that St. Paul was considered, both at Eome and among the 
Romans and the governing class in the provinces, as a 
person of some social rank and distinction. The respect with 
which he is treated by Festus and Felix, Agrippa and Grallio, 
implies that the rulers in the provinces regarded him as 
of a somewhat different stamp from the Jews, the mere sub- 
ject-provincials, with whom he had connected himself. The 
courteous treatment he received on his voyage to Italy, and 
by the chief men of the island of Melita, accords with this 
view of his position. The consideration extended to him, 
apparently beyond his expectation, at Rome ; his being allowed 
to dwell, while awaiting the judgment which he had claimed 
of the emperor himself, in a private residence under the sur- 
veillance of the police, attests the same consideration. To 
this may be added the fact, which it seems reasonable 
to admit, that the place assigned him for his sojourn was 
within the precincts of the Imperial quarters, as they may be 
called, on the Palatine; and that his preaching was attended 
by the Grreek and Jewish freed men attached to the Imperial 
household. Even before his arrival at Rome the Church of 
Christ in the city comprised members of the upper class of 
freedmen, that is, the clients and dependents, often prospe- 
rous, wealthy, and accomplished, of noble Roman houses. 
They ' of the household of Narcissus ' may have been such de- 
pendents of the celebrated favourite of Claudius, lately dead, 
a freedman himself, but equal in wealth and position to most of 
the old patrician heads of families. Names identical with 
those of several persons included in St. Paul's salutations to 
disciples at Rome, such as Tryphsena, Philologus, Amplias, 
Hermas, have been found among the sepulchral inscriptions 
in the columbaria of the Claudian Csesars ; and it is difficult 
to resist the conjecture that many of those whom the apostle 
addressed as recognised members of a circle of devout in- 



XOTES. 209 

quirers, and at last converts to the Gospel at Eome, were 
domestics of the Imperial palace. So a little later he himself 
sends from Eome the greetings of ^ many of Caesar's house- 
hold.' The curiosity at Eome about Jewish opinions and 
customs, and the progress they had made there among the 
Eomans themselves, as well as among resident foreigners, is 
strikingly witnessed in the literature of the Augustan age. 
The reaction against them after the great revolt in Pales- 
tine, is strongly marked in the change of tone observable in 
Tacitus, Juvenal, and Martial, as compared with that of Ovid 
and Tibullus. 

Notwithstanding the persecutions under Nero and Domitian 
the Grospel continued, I believe, to attract notice in high 
quarters at Eome ; and the staid, reserved, and almost tame 
character of Eoman Christianity, compared with its more 
salient and vigorous features in Grreece, in Africa, and in 
Egypt, in the first ages, may perhaps be ascribed to an early 
and continued connection with the court and courtly society. 
The curious history of Callistus, in the reign of Commodus, 
as detailed in the work of Hippolytus, seems to indicate a 
fatal degeneracy among the Eoman Christians, resulting from 
this very connection. 



Note S, Page 91. 

It is common among the freethinkers of modern times 
to augur the constant moral advance of society, in con- 
formity with its advance in material knowledge. Impatient 
at the slow progress they observe in this moral move- 
ment, they are tempted to impute it to the discourage- 
ment which the Christian teaching throws, as they say, 
upon it. They accuse Eevelation of turning men's thoughts 
backward to a pretended Paradise, a past state of original 
bliss which can never be regained in this life. Such, they 
declare, is the teaching of all niytJiologies ; the fancy of a 
golden age deteriorating to a silver, a brazen, and an iron 
age. On the other hand. Philosophy, they allege, has gene- 

P 



210 NOTES. 

rally taken the opposite viev/, and, tracing mankind back 
to its cradle in the primeval Past^ has represented it as 
developing, advancing, improving, from then till now, and 
capable of indefinite improvement in the illimitable future. 
Lucretius, no doubt, in a well-known passage (v. 923 sqq.), 
in accordance with the Epicurean denial of a Providence, 
does so trace the history of man to his first crude, bar- 
barous origin, and marks the various stages of his material 
and moral progTess. Nor is it the philosopher only who 
resorts to this solution. Many of the mythological legends 
of classical antiquity point to a belief in such a progres- 
sive development, and going much farther back than Lu- 
cretius, derive man from the first elements of nature, 
from animals, from birds, from trees, and from stones. I do 
not find, however, in Lucretius, any expectation of a conti- 
nuous progress hereafter. With him morals, no doubt, as well 
as arts, ^ ad summum venere cacumen.' The ancient philoso- 
phers held that the species had fully attained the limits of its 
progress. They admitted the existence of a principle of evil 
in the world, which leavened, and must continue to leaven, 
the mass to all time, and keep the moral world at least at a 
standstill, if it did not, according to the common persuasion of 
mankind, gradually corrupt and undermine it altogether. 
The common opinion, derived neither from philosophers nor 
from mythologies, but from men's personal experience, and 
their disappointment at the constant frustration and baffling of 
their own hopes and efforts, represented man as ever declining 
from the height to which he had by some happy providence 
attained, and gliding down a fatal incline to an ever worsening 
Future, The sentiments of Virgil and Horace, ^ omnia fatis 
in pejus ruere ; ' ' setas parentum pejor avis,' &c., seem to me 
fully borne out by the general feeling of antiquity at the 
period of its highest moral and material attainments. If, 
indeed, we have more sanguine aspirations in our modern 
schools of thought, it is to the teaching of Christianity itself 
that we mainly owe them. For Christianity first led men to 
look stedfastly to the future, and to hope for the attainment 



JS'OTES. 211 

of consummate perfection hereafter through gradual, and 
feeble, and imperfect attempts at improvement here. The 
theory of Christianity is the most temperate, the most modest, 
and, as far as appearances have hitherto gone, the truest 
theory of moral development. 

The later Grreek philosophy is distinguished by its ever- 
deepening sense of the universality, and the real evil of sin. 
' We have already seen,' says Dollinger {Gentile and Jeiu, ii. 
153, Engl, trans.), * what a close connection there was be- 
tween the defective knowledge which the old philosophy had 
of human freedom and of the nature of evil, with the rela- 
tion in which the Deity stood to both. These thinkers were 
wanting in an insight into the nature and conditions of the 
personality of Grod as w^ell as of men ; and therefore looked 
upon evil as partly resulting from mere defectiveness or in- 
firmity of means of knowledge ; they set it down to ignorance, 
and thought, accordingly, there was no other or higher remedy 
than philosophy. And partly from not distinguishing between 
the physical evil and the moral bad, they charged matter 
and its natural repugnance to the intellectual with being the 
source of the bad. Hence, the idea of sin was in fact strange 
to them ; they had no perception how a free act of evil done 
by the creature bore upon divine holiness and justice. In 
fine, the Stoics had further obscured this important question 
by their theory that evil was as absolutely necessary in the 
order of the world as the shadow is to the light, and that all 
evil was equal. They raised man above all responsibility 
and account, and represented him as "svithout freedom, the 
irresistibly determined tool of destiny. Even the Emperor 
Marcus Aurelius, with his mild temperament, found a com- 
plete justification herein for the greatest criminal. A man of 
a certain nature can do nothing else but act viciously. To 
make him responsible for his actions would be on a par with 
punishing another for having bad breath, or bidding a fig-tree 
bear anything besides figs. It was utterly impossible for 
vicious men to act otherwise than we see them act, and to 
demand impossibilities is folly. 

p 2 



212 ^"OTES. 

^ This view of evil was expressly combated by Platonists 
4ike Plutarch. Evil had not come into the world like an 
episode, pleasant and acceptable to the Deity ; it filled every 
human thing. The whole of life, equally stained from its 
opening to its concluding scene, was a mass of errors and 
misfortune, and in no part pure and blameless. " No one," he 
said, " is sober enough for virtue ; but we all of us are un- 
seemly and in unblest confusion." This severe notion of evil^ 
its universality in the life of man, and the deep roots it had 
struck in his nature, is a characteristic of thinkers of this 
period. We meet with similar expressions in Seneca, to the 
effect that not a man will be found who does not sin, has not 
sinned, and will not continue sinning to his dying hour. 
Gralen, a ph3^sician, and at the same time one of the acutest 
of the philosophers of this latter time, went farther still. 
He declared the dispositions of children to evil to be in 
excess, and thought that only by little and little the disposi- 
tion to good got the upper hand, the more the intelligent 
soul got the mastery over the two others, for he adopted with 
Plato a ** threefold division of the soul." 

' The solution of the problem of the origin of evil appeared 
all the more difficult now. All did not accept the comfortable 
expedient of Platonists like Celsus, of its having sprung 
from matter in existence from eternity ; or, like Plutarch, who 
accepted an evil and eternal world-soul, and an unintelligent 
element of essential evil in the soul of man. Maximus of 
Tyre, therefore, thought that Alexander, instead of consult- 
ing the oracle of Ammon about the sources of the Nile, 
should rather have put a question of importance to humanity 
generally, namely, that of the origin of evil. He then made 
an attempt of his own at a solution, which only ended again 
in placing the seat and fount of all evil in matter. (M. 
Anton., Medit ix. 1; x. 30; viii. 14; v. 28. Plutarch, 
Adv. Stoic. 14. Senec. de Clement, i. 6. Maximus Tyr. 
Diss. xli. p. 487 seq.)' 



NOTES. 213 



Note T, Page 94. 

After describing the rebellious attitude of the Stoic philo- 
sophy towards the Caesars, and the measures of the govern- 
ment to control it, M. Denis says (Idees Morales, vol. ii. 
p. 62 foil. : — ' Le Stoicisme grandit dans cette lutte de 
I'esprit contre la force brutale. II devint une foi ardente 
et vigoureuse, une sorte de religion des grandes ames, qui 

eut ses devots et ses martyrs De la les caracteres 

nouveaux du Stoicisme ; le ton de la predication remplapant 
la discussion philosophique, une science jusqu'alors inconnue 
de la vie, et un art singulier de demeler les plus obscurs 
sophismes du vice et de la faiblesse, mais par-dessus une 
austere tendresse pour I'humanite. Le philosophe n'est plus 
un logicien qui dispute, ni un beau parleur, qui cherche les 
applaudissements. C'est un maitre qui enseigne ; c'est un 
censeur public, charge du soin des consciences ; c'est un te- 
moin de Dieu, qui ne doit aux hommes que la verite. . . . 
II ne faut pas chercher dans ces philosophes de profonds 
et subtils raisonnements, mais des conseils affectueux ou 
severes, des remontrances, des exhortations, et d'instantes 
prieres de se convertir a la vertu et a la loi de Dieu. . .' 



Note U, Page 97. 

Epictet. Dissertat. iv. c. 8 : "AvOpcoTrs, '^(^SLfidcrKTja-ov 7rpa>Tov ' 
IBov crov rrjv opfiTjv . . . ayvoslcrOai jjLsXsTrjaov irpcorov rls si * 
aavTa> ^LKoa6<^7](TOV 6\L<yov -)(p6vov. Ouro) icapTros ylvsrai ' 
KaropvyrjvaL Ssl sttl tlvu ')(p6vov to airspfia, Kpv(f)67]vai, /cara 
fjLLKpov av^7]0r]vac, Lva TsXeacpoprjOrj . . . tolovtov si koX 
(TV ^vrdpiov. SuTTOV Tov 8sovT09 rjvOrjKas, dizoKavasi as 6 
')(^si/uLcov. K. T. \, . . . c. 10. ^AyaOos o)V diroOavy, ysvvalav 
irpa^iv iiTLTsXwv' iirsl yap hsl itclvtws diroOavslv, dvdyKrj 
rl TTOTS TToiovvTa svpsdrjvat , . . tl ovv Oiksis ttolojv svps- 
Orjvai VTTO TOV OavdTov; '^ycb /jlsv, to sjxov /jLspo9, spyov tl ttot 
dvOpoyirLKov, svspysTiKov, K0ivco(j)s\h, ysvvatov. ... c, 12. 



214 NOTES. 

Tt ovv ; ^vvarov ava/jbdpnjTov ri^rj slvai ; " Kfirj'^avov ' ahX' 
sKstvo Bwarbv, irpos ro jurj dfiapravsLV Tsrdadai Bltjvskcos. 
. . . NOz^ 8' orav eo7rr}9, 'Att' avptov Trpoas^o) • ladt, on 
TOVTO Xsysts, ^rjfjLspov scrofjiat dvai(Ty(vvTos^ dfcaipos^ TairsLVos, 
• . . BXsTTf, oaa KaKa asavrcp sinTpsiTSis. k, t. X. 

Seneca, Epist. xciv. 52 : Nonne apparet nobis opus esse 
aliquo advocato, qui contra populi prsecepta prsecipiat? 
Nulla ad nostras aures vox impune perfertur : nocent qui 
optant, nocent qui exsecrantur. Nam et horum imprecatio 
falsos nobis metus inserit, et illorum amor male docet bene 
optando . . . Non licet, inquam, ire recta via : trahunt in 
pravum parentes, trabunt servi : nemo errat uni sibi, sed de- 
mentiam spargit in proximos^ accipitque invicem. Et ideo 
in singulis vitia populorum sunt, quia ilia populus dedit. 
Dum facit quisque pejorem, faetus est. Didicit deteriora, 
deinde docuit ; effectaque est ingens ilia nequitia, congesto in 
unum, quod cuique pessimum scitur. Sit ergo aliquis custos, 
et aurem subinde pervellat, abigatque rumores, et reclamet 
populis laudantibus. Erras enim si existimas nobiscum 
vitia nasci ; supervenerunt, ingesta sunt. Itaque monitio- 
nibus crebris opiniones qu£e nos circumsonant compescamus. 
Nulli nos vitio natura conciliat ; nos ilia integros ac liberos 
genuit ..... Itaque si in medio urbium fremitu collocati 
sumus, stet ad latus monitor, et contra laudatores ingentium 
patrimoniorum laudet parvo divitem, et usu opes metientem, 
&c. 

M. Antoninus, Meditat. vi. 30 : "Opa firj diroKaLo-apcoOf}?, 
fjLT) ^a<f)fj9 ' tylvsTai, <ydp ' Tr)prj<Tov ovv crsavrov dirXovv, 
dyadov, aKspaiov, crSfLvov, aKO/Ju^jrov, tov hiKaiov <f)c\ov, Osoas/Srj, 
EVfjbsvrj, (ptXoaTOpyov, sppwfjiivov irpos rd irpsirovTa spya . 
dydyVLdai, iva rotovros (7V/ii/uis[v7)9, olov ae rjOskrjds Troirjcrat 
^iXoaocpla . alBov 6som, (tco^s dvOpdnrovs . ^paj^ps 6 /Bios . 
sh KapiTos TTjs sTTiysiov ^(OTJs, ^idOscTLs ocrla^ koX irpd^SLs 
KOiVcoviKaL TTavra^ms ^Avtoovlv ov iiaOr^rris k. t. \. 

Plutarch, De cohibenda ira, 2, reports the saying of 
Musonius Kufus : Kal firjv oiv ys fJbSixvrjfxeOa Movctmvlov koXmv 
au sanv ... to hslv dsl ^spairsvopuivovs ^lovv tovs crco^sadaL 



NOTES. 215 

fMsXXovTas. Ou fyap cos sWs^opov, ocfiai, Ssl Oepairsvaavra 
<jvvsKJ)spSLV TO) vocnj/uLart rov \6yov, aX\' ifi/jusvovra rfj "^vxiJi 
avvix^f'y T«5 KpLdSLS /cal (j^vXaaasiv. k. t. X. 

The gravity of this sage's teaching is further indicated 
by Auhis Grellius, Hod. Aii. v. 1 : Musonium philoso- 
phum solitum dicer e accepimus : Qiium philosophus, in- 
quit, hortatur, monet, suadet, objurgat, aliudve quid dis- 
ciplinarum disserit; turn, qui audiunt, si summo et soluto 
pectore obvias vulgatasque laudes effutiunt, si clamitant 
etiam, si vocum ejus festivitatibus, si modulis verborum, 
si quibusdam quasi frequentamentis orationis moventur, 
exagitantur et gestiunt ; turn scias et qui dicit et ({ui 
audit frustra esse : neque illic philosophum loqui, sed tibi- 
,cinem canere. Animus is, inquit, audientis philosophum, 
si, qu8e dicuntur, utilia ac sahibria sunt, et errorum atque 
vitiorum medicinas ferunt, laxamentum atque otium prolixe 
profuseque laudandi non habet : quisquis ille est qui audit, 
nisi ille est plane deperditus, inter ipsam philosophi oratio- 
nem et perhorrescat necesse est, et pudeat tacitus, et poeniteat 
et gaudeat et admiretur : (seqq.) 

Note V, Page 99. 

Seneca, Epist. xlviii. 6, 7, 8 : Vis scire quid philosophia 
promittat generi humane ? Consilium. Alium mors vocat, 
alium paupertas urit, alium divitise vel alienos torquent, 
vel suae : ille malam fortunam horret, hie se felicitati suae 
subducere cupit : hunc homines male habent, ilium Dii. 
Quid mihi lusoria ista proponis ? Non est jocandi locus; ad 
miseros advocatus es. Opem te laturum naufragis, captis, 
segris, egentibus, intentse securi subjectum prsestantibus 
caput poUicitus es : quo diverteris ? quid agis ? hie cum quo 
ludis, timet. Succurre : quid quod laqueati despondent ; in 
poenis omnes undique ad te manus tendunt, perditse vitse, 
periturseque auxilium aliquod implorant, in te spes opesque 
sunt. Eogant ut ex tanta illos volutatione extrahas, ut 
disjectis et errantibus clarum veritatis lumen ostendas. Die, 



216 NOTES. 

quid Natura necessarium fecerit, quid supervacuum, quam 
faciles leges posuerit ; quam jucunda sit vita, quam expedita, 
illas sequentibus; quam acerba et implicita eorum, qui 
opinioni plus quam naturse crediderunt. 

Note W, Page 102. 

Dollinger, Gentile and Jew, ii. 148 (Engl, transl.) : — 
* Since the middle of the first century after Christ, a growing 
prominence was observable in the return to a more believing 
disposition. One feels that a great change has taken place 
in the intellectual atmosphere when one compares Polybius, 
Strabo, Diodorus, and Dionysius with Plutarch, Aristides, 
Maximus of Tyre, and Dion Chrysostom.' 

M. Martha has given a sketch of the Sophists of the 
second century, and of the character and teaching of Dion 
Chrysostom as their representative, from which I quote a 
paragraph in illustration of the views advanced in the text 
{Revue ConteTnporaine, tome xxxi. p. 246. 1857) :~ 

*Parmi ces orateurs qui remplissaient le monde de leur 
parole et de leur gloire, il en est un petit nombre qui ont fait 
de I'eloquence un noble usage en repandant partout les 
preceptes de la morale. II faut remarquer ici qu'aux plus 
tristes epoques de I'histoire ancienne, c'est la philosophic 
seule qui soutient encore les esprits, les ames, et resiste a cette 
lente degradation morale qui menace de tout envahir. 
Pendant que la politique est impuissante, que les princes ne 
peuvent rien ou ne tentent rien pour relever les moeurs, 
pendant que le monde se plonge de plus en plus dans la 
corruption ou s'amuse a des futilites sophistiques, quelques 
philosophes, a la favour de ces usages qui permettaient au 
premier venu de prendre la parole dans les assemblees, se 
glissent au milieu de la foule tumultueuse et font entendre, 
non sans peril parfois, quelques lepons de sagesse. C'est la 
philosophie qui est la derniere gardienne de la raison et de la 
dignite dans les societes antiques. Elle survit aux lois, 
aux institutions, aux moeurs ; elle echappe meme a la ty- 



NOTES. 217 

rannie, parce qii'elle pent se refugier dans I'invisible sanc- 
tiiaire d'un coeur honnete. La matiere ne lui manque ja- 
mais, piiisque, Tame humaine etant le sujet de ses etudes, 
elle porte avec soi I'objet de ses meditations. Bien plus, le 
malheur du temps ne fait souvent que raviver sa force, la 
corruption des moeurs I'irrite, la degradation des caracteres 
I'anime d'une ardeur plus genereuse, et la vue de la servilite 
lui fait sentir tout le prix de la liberte interieure. Aussi ne 
faut-il s'etonner si les dernieres paroles sensees, raisonnables, 
eloquentes, sortent de la bouche des pMlosopbes. 

* Cependant il faut reconnaitre que I'enseignement philoso 
pbique etait bien dechu. II s'est fait simple et modeste, et, 
renonpant aux gi'andes idees et aux problemes savants qu'il 
agitait autrefois, il ne donne plus que des precept es de con- 
duite. Ce n'est plus le temps ou de puissantes ecoles 
etablissaient, chacune a sa maniere, les regies de la morale, 
et fondaient de vastes systemes dont les principes et les con- 
sequences etaient defendus avec une sorte de foi jalouse. 
Les hautes etudes de la pbilosophie se sont affaiblies; on 
n'aime plus les rechercbes abstraites ni les deductions rigou- 
reuses, et meme on pent dire que les disciples ne comprennent 
plus la parole du maitre. Les doctrines ri vales de Plat on, 
d'Aristote, de Zenon, d'Epicure, qui alors se partagent les 
esprits, se sont fait tant d'emprunts et de concessions reci- 
proques qu'on a de la peine a distinguer, dans les ouvrages 
du temps, ce qui appartient aux unes et aux autres. Les 
pbilosopbes se disent encore de telle ou telle ecole, ils en 
portent le nom et souvent le costume, mais ils ne s'apercoivent 
pas qu'ils sont infideles a la doctrine qu'ils enseignent. 
Celui-ci se croit Stoicien et adopte les idees de Platon sur 
Tame et I'immortalite; celui-la, voulant s'eloigner un peu 
des severites du Portique, glisse a son insu dans les molles 
delices d'Epicure. Tons ces compromis et ces transactions 
entre les diverses ecoles amenent le discredit de la pbilo- 
sojDbie dogmatique. Quand les doctrines ne s'affirment pas 
fortement elles-memes, quand elles ne sont pas exclusives, 
quand elles pactisent avec I'ennemi, elles ne peuvent plus 



218 NOTES. 

compter sur des adeptes devoues. Aussi, soit affaiblissement 
general des etudes, soit indifference, soit tolerance excessive, 
presque tons les bons esprits de ce siecle s'abstiennent de 
traiter les hautes questions de la metapbysique et de la 
morale, on s'ils les tentent quelquefois, ils confondent tous 
les systemes, et ne laissent voir trop souvent que leur le- 
gerete et leur ignorance. La philosopbie aspire a devenir 
populaire, elle s'abaisse, elle se fait toute a tous, et pour etre 
comprise et acceptee, elle puise ses idees non plus a la source 
elevee du dogme, mais dans le reservoir commun qu'on ap- 
pelle le bon sens public ; elle se rapprocbe de plus en plus 
de la pratique, et se contente de donner des prescriptions 
salutaires et incontestables, qu'elle redige en maximes et 
qu'elle decore d'ornements litteraires. De la une nouvelle 
espece d'eloquence qui n'est pas sans portee ni sans me- 
rite, celle de ces orateurs pbilosophes qu'on appelle aussi 
des sophisteSj et qui seraient dignes d'un nom plus bono- 
rable.' 

Of tbese preacbing pbilosopbers, tbe most eminent are 
Apollonius of Tyana, and Dion Cbrysostom. The career 
of tbe latter, as an itinerant preacher of moral truths, 
may be traced in bis own genuine writings. We may 
infer nearly the same of Apollonius from various sources, 
but his reputed biography by Philostratus is a work of more 
than a century later, and is evidently fabricated for a pole- 
mical purpose. It represents its hero as a heathen counter- 
part to Christ, and is valuable to us, as shovv^ing the impression 
made upon the heathen mind by the portraiture of our Lord, 
and after Him of His Apostles, as ' going about doing good.' 
The points of evident imitation of the Grospel history in the 
' Life of Apollonius ' are given in full detail by M. Pressense, 
Hist, des Trois Premiers Siecles, 2e partie, tome ii. p. 145 
foil. The Lives of the Sophists by Philostratus and Eunapius 
discover to us a whole class of such itinerant preachers 
among the heathen philosophers of the second century. 
Others of a similar school of moral teaching fixed themselves 
in the great universities of the empire, or passed their lives 



NOTES. 219 

in private retirement. The expression quoted in the text 
was that of Demonax, commemorated by Lucian : — ^A07]vai(ov 
8s (TKSTTTO/JLsvcov KaTOL ^TjXov TOP iTpos l^opLvOlovs KaTadTTjaa- 
adac Osav fjiovofjbd')((ov, TrpoasXOoov sh avTovs, fir] irp6TspoVf£(pr], 
ravra, oyAOrjvaloL '\lr7}(f)Lasa6s, ay fjurj rod iXsov top ^(opiov Ka- 
OsXrjTS. A similar sarcasm is attributed also to Apollonius. 
The sentiment was perhaps common to many. Demonax is 
said also to have quelled a tumult in Athens by the authority 
of his presence. Xraasays Bs ttots ^A6rjvrja-L ysvo/jLsvrjs slarjX- 
Osv sh rrjv siCKkr)aLav, koX (Ravels /iiovov aicoTrav sTTolrjcrsv 
avTovs ' 6 hs, IScov r^hr] fiSTsyvcoKora^, ovBsp slttcov koI amis 
aTrrlWcvyr}. — Lucian, Demonax, 57, 64. 



Note X, Page 104. 

Denis, Idees Morales, ii. p. 154:— *Le Stoicisme ne s'arre- 
tait point la: a la theorie de la justice universelle, ou de 
I'egalite des hommes et de I'unite de notre espece, il ajoutait 
celle de I'universelle charite.' The writer proceeds to give a 
full exposition of this thesis, pp. 154-190. The doctrines 
and practice of Pagan philanthropy, at their best and highest, 
fall far below the standard of the teaching and the practice 
of Christian communities. Nevertheless, they deserve to be 
noted in token of the purifying effect of that consciousness 
of moral infirmity which entered, as I believe, so deeply into 
the minds of the heathen, in the second and third centuries. 
Cicero's slight mention of his father's death in a letter to 
Atticus — * Pater nobis decessit a.d. viii. Kal. J)ec.\Ad. Att i. 
6 ) — is often quoted as an instance of the hardness of feeling 
engendered by habit and system among the Pagans in the 
palmiest days of their philosophy. Considering how scanty 
are the traces of more humane sentiment in respect of 
natural ties among the Eomans of that age, we may be justi- 
fied in so quoting it. But it is interesting to contrast with it 
the tribute of refined and cultivated affection which Statius, 
a hundred and fifty years later, pays to his deceased parent : — 



220 NOTES. 

Quid referam expositos servato pondere mores ; 
Quas pietas, quam vile lucrum ; quae cura pudoris, 
Quantus amor recti ; rursusque, ubi dulce remitti, 
Gratia quae vultus, animo quam nulla senectus ? 

The poet continues, indeed, to expatiate on the theme with 
a too elaborate rhetoric, which has cast suspicion on the 
genuineness of his feelings. But, however this may be, it 
is not to the feelings of Statins himself, but to the feelings 
of the age, which demanded or encouraged such a manifesta- 
tion, that I principally look. Comp. Statins, Sylv. iii. 3, 12, 
and foil. 

There is another passage in Cicero's letters, often cited, in 
which he checks himself for the sorrow he cannot help ex- 
periencing on the death of a confidential and favourite slave, 
the companion of his studies, and partaker in his philoso- 
phical speculations ; and this is contrasted with the more 
natural and liberal flow of sentiment in which the younger 
Pliny allows himself to indulge on a somewhat similar loss. 
But Statins, again, with deeper and kindlier feeling, allows 
to the favourite slave of his friend a place in Elysium, and 
is not ashamed to suggest that he may there watch over the 
interests of his master surviving him on earth. How great 
a step in humanity has been made from the cold exclusive- 
ness of the Platonists and the Stoics, even in the most genial 
of their respective representatives, a Virgil and a Lucan ! 

Statins, Sylv. ii. 6 : — 

Ssepe ille volentem 
Castigabat herum, studioque altisque juvabat 

Consiliis Subit ille pios, carpitque quietem 

Eljsiam 

Pone, precor, questus ; alium tibi fata Philetum, 
Forsan et ipse dabit ; moresque habitusque decoros 
Monstrabit gaudens, similemque docebit amorem. 



NOTES. 221 



Note Y, Page 115. 

Seneca^ as quoted by St. Augustine, De Civ. Dei^ vi. 1 1, had 
said of the Jews : Cum interim usque eo sceleratissimse gentis 
consuetudo convaluit, ut per omnes jam terras recepta sit, 
victi victoribus leges dederunt. He was speaking, it seems, 
of the sacramenta, or mysterious rites and customs of this 
people; and from the context it appears plainly that he had 
more particularly in view the Jewish observation of the 
Sabbath. We learn from Ovid and TibuUus how much remark 
this usage had excited among the Eomans, and with what 
favour it was regarded by them. The socialist Proudhon 
has written a book to recommend it on purely economical 
grounds, and I can easily imagine a practical people, like the 
Romans, being struck with the good policy of such an in- 
stitution. At a later period, when the Jews had fallen out of 
favour at Rome, their Sabbaths are made the subject of scorn 
and ridicule. 

Note Z, Page 117. 

Denis, Idees Morales, ii. 234 foil.: — 'Mais ce qui nous 
semble nouveau, ce qu'on ne retrouverait pas au meme de- 
gre dans Chrysippe, dans Cleanthe, ni dans Platon, c'est la 
pensee toujours presente de la Providence, et de la bonte 
divine, c'est le sentiment de ferveur et de foi, qui anime des 
ames fortes et tendres, telles qu'Epictete et Marc-Aurele. 
Dieu n'est pas seulement pour les sages de I'empire I'auteur 
et le maitre de I'univers, la loi qui conduit toutes choses 
au bien, la sagesse qui a tout fait avec nombre, poids et 
mesure : c'est avant tout un pere bienveillant, un ami tou- 
jours sur et fidele, le refuge et la consolation qui ne manquent 
jamais a I'honnete homme. " Qu'aurais-je a faire," dit 
Marc-Aurele, " d'un monde sans providence et sans dieux ? " 
Dieu est bon ; il a done ordonne toutes choses selon sa bonte, 
et par consequent dans I'interet dernier de la vertu. . . . 



222 NOTES. 

" Traitez-moi, Seigneur, a votre volonte, s'ecrie Epictete, 
conduisez-moi ou il vous plaira, couvrez-moi de I'habit que 
vous voudrez, je suis resigne a vos lois, et votre volonte est la 
mienne. En toutes choses je celebrerai vos ceuvres et vos 
bienfaits^ et je serai votre temoin aupres des mortels, en leur 
montrant ce que c'est qu'un homme veritable." . . Cette 
bumilite de Marc-Aurele et d'Epictete est toute morale. 
Elle n'a rien de ce sentiment servile et superstitieux, qui 
nous fait voir dans un accident un coup de la Providence, et 
qui prete a Dieu je ne sais quelle jalousie par laquelle il se 
plait a renverser ce c(ui s'eleve, a exalter ce qui s'abaisse. . . . 
Si nous sommes si faibles, il semble naturel que nous priions 
Dieu, soit pour le remercier du Men que nous pouvons avoir 
fait, soit pour le demander un surcroit de force et de courage. 
*' Ou les dieux ne peuvent rien," dit Marc-Aurele, " ou ils 
peuvent quelque cbose. S'ils ne peuvent rien, pourquoi les 
prior? Et s'ils ont quelque pouvoir, pourquoi, au lieu de 
leur demander de te donner quelque cbose ou de mettre fin a 
telle autre, ne les pries-tu pas de te delivrer de tes craintes, 
de tes desirs et de tes troubles d'esprit ? " On a raison de 
dire que Dieu entend et exauce les prieres de Fame raison- 
nable, meme quand elles demeurent sans voix. . . " Mais 
qui I'a dit que les dieux ne viennent pas a notre secours 
meme dans les cboses qui dependent de nous? Commence 
seulernent a leur demander ces sortes de secours, et tu verras. 
Celui-ci prie pour obtenir les faveurs de sa maitresse, et toi, 
prie pour n'avoir jamais de tels desirs. Celui-ci prie pour 
etre delivre de tel fardeau ; et toi, prie d'etre assez fort pour 
n'avoir pas besoin de cette delivrance." Une telle priere ne 
ressemble pas a celles de la foule, qui parait marchander avec 
Dieu, et lui reprocber d'etre un mauvais debiteur, en disant : 
Si jamais j'ai fait fumer I'encens dans tes temples, donne-moi 
telle ou telle cbose en revancbe. Maxime de Tyr la definit 
tres-bien : c'est une conversation fortifiante avec Dieu ; c'est 
un temoignage que Fame se rend de sa vertu en remerciant 
celui qui nous Fa inspiree ; c'est un e ncouragement que se 
donne la vertu, en demandant a Dieu des biens que, par sa 



NOTES^ 223 

faveiir, elle trouve et puise en elle-meme. Les entretiens 
d'Epictete sont pleius de prieres de cette sorte, communica- 
tions intimes et familieres avec Dieu, effusions d'une ame 
pieuse devant son maitre et son pere, actes de foi et de re- 
connaissance en vers la supreme bonte. . . . Au lieu de 
s'echapper en fri voles sarcasmes^ comme Lucien, en invectives 
incensees, comme Lucain, ou bien en paroles ameres, comme 
Tacite, qui ne reconnait guere la providence de Dieu qu'a 
ses coups et a ses vengeances, le pauvre Epictete, Fancien 
esclave d'Epapbrodite, ne sait que benir celui qui I'a si rude- 
ment eprouve; et je ne connais rien qui peigne mieux I'etat 
de son ame, et les besoins religieux des esprits d'elite au 
commencement de notre ere, que ce pencbant a la priere et a 
I'adoration.' 

M. Denis refers to a variety of passages in Epictetus, M. 
Aurelius, and otbers. He omits one example of tbe prayers 
of tbe beatben, perbaps because it belongs properly to a 
later period, tbougb evidently formed on tbeir model. Tbe 
commentary of Simplicius on tbe ' Conversations of Epic- 
tetus ' tbus concludes : — 

*\kst£V(o (ts, Sso-TTOTa, 6 Trarrjp koI '^ysfiobv rov sv rjijuv \6yov, 
v7rofjLV7]a67]vaL julsv r/fids rrjs savrMV evjsvsLa9, rjs rj^tcoOrj/jisv 
irapa aov ' avixirpd^at hs ws avroKtvrjrois rjfjLLV, irpos rs KaOap- 
(TLV Tr]v aTTo Tov croofjiaTOs Kol T(ov aXoycov iraOwv, Kal irpos to 
vTTSps^siv KOL ap')(SLV avTwv, Kal (i)S 6pydvoL9 K£')(prj(T6aL Kara 
TOV TrpoariKovTa Tpoirov . o-v/jUTrpaTTStv ts Kal irpos SiopOcoacv 
cLKpi^Tf TOV sv r]fjuv Xoyov, Kal £io)g-lv avTov irpos to. ovtojs 

OVTUf Bia TOV TTjS 6Xli]6siaS (pCOTOS. Kal TO TpLTOV Kal GWTrjpiOV 
IKSTSVCO, dcpsXSLV TSXsCOS TTjV dj^XvV T03V '>^V')(^LK(aV rjfJLCOV OfjL/jLaTCOV, 

"00/3* £v ycvcoaKCD/jiSV {^KaTCL TOv"0/ji7]pov) rj fJLSv Osov rjha Kal 
av^pa. 

Note A A, Page 120. 

De Broglie, VEglise et V Empire Romain, iii. 165: — 
* L'ecole d'Alexandrie ne faisait pas seulement descendre 
I'ame bumaine, par une suite de cbutes necessaires, des 



224 NOTES 

hauteurs de I'Etre absolu : elle lui enseignait aussi y remonter 
par I'etude et par la vertu. . . . Aussi n'est-ce par 
aucune faculte humaine que rhomme, dans le systeme neo- 
platonicien, se met en communication avec cette supreme 
forme de I'Etre divin : c'est au contraire par une faculte 
superieure a lui, qui Fenleve a son essence, le transfigure et 
I'absorbe. Ce que la raison ne pent lui faire connaitre, i'extase 
le lui revele. Sous le nom d'extase, I'ecole neoplatonicienne 
entend non une faculte, mais un etat de Tame. C'est I'etre 
individuel qui disparait et se perd dans la contemplation de 
I'Etre infini dont il est sorti autrefois, auqael il doit retourner 
un jour. Un vif amour de la verite, une soif de la posseder, 
suppriment pour un moment, des ici-bas, les limites de la 
nature finie, et lui permettent de s'abreuver et de se fondre 
dans la source meme de son etre. Ce n'est point alors I'ame 
qui connait Dieu, c'est Dieu qui descend en elle : il n'y a 
pas deux etres. Fun connaissant, I'autre connu ; il n'y a plus, 
pour parler le langage technique, un sujet et un objet de la 
connaissance ; I'homme ne connait pas Dieu, il est fait Dieu 
pour un instant : I'eclair de I'extase, en le touchant, I'a 
deifie. . . Cette theorie de I'extase est le sommet de toute 
la doctrine neoplatonicienne. L'extase est le terme dernier 
de toute connaissance, et le couronnement de la vertu par- 
faite. C'est par un patient amour du vrai, par une constante 
pratique du bien ; c'est par la mortification des sens, le de- 
tachement des passions, c'est par le mepris du corps et de la 
terre, que le sage Plotin doit meriter cette anticipation de 
I'immortalite divine. C'est en cessant d'etre homme qu'il 
pent se rendre digne de devenir Dieu. Des pratiques austeres 
renouvelees de Pythagore, excitees peut-etre encore par 
I'emulation des exemples chretiens, avaient seules revele a 
Plotin I'existence de cet etat surnaturel. Porphyre en tra- 
pait le tableau dans son traite De U Abstinence, et empruntant 
presque les paroles de I'Esprit- Saint, il engageait les hommes 
a purifier leur corps, comme le temple oil doit descendre la 
gloire de Dieu. Sa lettre a sa femme Marcelle respire le 
meme enthousiasme d'austerite. Son degout des choses de la 



]S"OTES. 225 

terre etait meme pousse si loin^ qu'il fallait rintervention de 
Plotin pour le detourner du suicide. Et lui-meme cependant, 
malgre tant d'efforts, n'avait goiite que rarement les douceurs 
de I'extase. " Pour moi," dit-il, en racontant les merveilles 
de la vie de son maitre, '*je n'ai ete uni qu'une seule fois 
a Dieu, a I'age de quarante-huit ans." ' 

M. Pressense, in Ms History of the First Three Centuries 
(partie ii. torn. 2, p. 6'2\ after a lucid exposition of the doc- 
trine of the New Platonists, thus sums up his comparison 
between it and the Christian : — 

'Le Christianisme, par Thumilite et la mortification, con- 
duit a la plenitude de la vie, et sa morale se resume dans 
cette parole du Christ : "/Si quelqiCun perd sa vie, il la re- 
troiiveraJ^ Le neoplatonisme, par Fascetisme et Textase, 
veut amener I'homme a I'aneantissement, car le dernier 
terme du progres, selon lui, c'est de perdre toute conscience 
de soi, c'est d'etre semblable a celui qui n'est pas, c'est done 
de ne pas etre. Lui aussi dit a I'homme : " Ecoute-moi et 
tu seras comme un dieu;" mais ce dieu auquel il faut 
ressembler, c'est I'abstraction pure, c'est le non-etre, c'est 
le neant imparfaitement dissimule par un langage brillant, 
poetique. . . . Ainsi finit la noble philosophie grecque ; 
elle va se perdre dans la Xirvana du boudhisme ; elle pousse 
I'idee orientale jusqu'aux dernieres consequences, jusqu'au 
suicide moral que les sombres forets de I'lnde semblaient 
devoir seules abriter. 

' La philosophie de la nature a parcouru le meme cycle que 
la religion de la nature ; elles arrivent I'une et Tautre au 
meme terme, c'est a dire, a I'aneantissement, tant il est vrai 
qu'en s'enfermant dans le monde inferieur, en cherchant la 
vie dans la nature, on s'eloigne de la source veritable de 
I'etre. Le principe de la nature est au-dessus d'elle et en 
dehors d'elle ; elle ne se suffit pas a elle-meme, et quiconque 
ne s'eleve pas a la region plus haute ovl reside le principe de 
toute vie, ne rencontre en has que la mort, et ne s'arrete sur 
cette pente que quand il est arrive au neant. Le naturalism e 
s'ensevelit necessairement, comme religion et comme philo- 

Q 



226 NOTES. 

Sophie, dans le monde inferieur, oii il croyait trouver une vie 
suffisante.' 

Note B B, Page 125. 

The pretensions of the sorcerers are exposed in detail by 
Liician in his account of Alexander of Abonoteichus, the 
Pseudomantis, as he calls him. After referring to this cele- 
brated exposure, Dollinger {Gentile and Jeiu, ii. 199) con- 
tinues :— 

' The apparition of Hecate was equally efficacious. Be- 
lievers were told to throw themselves prostrate on the 
ground at the first sight of fire. The goddess of the high- 
ways and roads, the Grorgo or Mormo wandering among the 
graves at night, was then invoked in verse, after which a 
heron or vulture was let loose, with lighted tow attached 
to her feet, the flame of which frightening the bird, it flew 
wildly about the room, and as the fire flashed here and 
there, the prostrate suppliants were convinced that they 
were eye-witnesses of a great prodigy. Similar artifices 
were employed to make the moon and stars appear on the 
ceiling of a room, and to produce the effects of an earth- 
quake. To make an inscription show itself on the liver of 
a victim, the haruspex wrote the words previously with 
sympathetic ink on the palm of his hand, which he pressed 
on the liver long enough to leave the impression behind. 
And so the Neo-Platonists contrived to cheat the Emperor 
Julian when Maximus conducted him into the subterranean 
vaults of a temple of Hecate, and caused him to see an ap- 
parition of fire.' 

The subject of the prevalence of imposture and credulity 
at this time in the Eoman world is well reviewed by Denis, 
Idees Morales, &c. ii. 277 sqq. : — 

* Non-seulement ils sentaient le besoin d'une regie et 
d'une discipline, mais ils etaient comme enveloppes d'un 
atmosphere de credulite et de superstitions. C'est le tempp, 
en effet, de I'astrologie, de la magie^ et de mille croyances 



NOTES. 227 

etranges sur Dieu, sur les demons, sur Tame et sur I'autre 
moiide, qui de toutes parts debordaient de I'Orient sur 
rOccident. Les enfants perdus du Portique et de I'Aca- 
demie et leurs adeptes de haut rang voulaient a toute force 
penetrer I'avenir, soit en lisant dans les astres, soit en 
mettant en communication avec les esprits, tandis que le 
petit peuple courait aux cultes etrangers. En vain les 
Cesars, a qui les sciences occultes inspiraient une feroce 
terreur, et qui, selon le mot de Lucain, "defendaient aux 
dieux de parler," sevissaient centre les imposteurs et leurs 
dupes, et faisaient detruire publiquement par le feu les livres 
de magie, deporter ceux qui en possedaient, bruler vifs les 
charlatans de la Perse et de la Chaldee, exposer aux betes 
ou mettre en croix les malheureux qui avaient la sottise 
de les consulter. En vain les hommes de se]!is soutenaient 
que tout Part des devins n'est qu'une imposture pour soutirer 
de I'argent aux imbecilles ; qu'il n'y a point de relation entre 
une constellation et le sort si divers de tant d'hommes nes 
dans le meme instant ; que les dieux ne peuvent etre soumis 
a la puissance et a la volonte des mortels ; qu'il faudrait etre 
d'une nature surhumaine et porter en soi quelque image de 
la divinite pour avoir le droit de proclamer les volontes et 
les ordres de Dieu. II se trouvait toujours des hommes, ou 
avides, ou impatients de la destinee, qui avaient besoin 
d'etre trompes, et Tacite pouvait dire de I'astrologie qu'elle 
serait toujours chassee de Pome et qu'elle y regnerait toujours. 
Les Grecs etaient encore plus entetes de la magie, qui leur 
etait venue de I'Asie et de I'Egypte. Tout leur paraissait 
rempli de demons bons ou mauvais, et comme les dieux 
etaient plus nombreux que les hommes dans certains cantons 
de rAchaie, les miracles y etaient aussi moins rares que les 
faits naturels. II faut voir dans Lucien jusqu'ou etait 
poussee la credulite. La.c'est un magicien qui vole dans 
I'air, qui passe au travers du feu, qui attire ou qui chasse les 
demons, qui guerit les malades ou qui ressuscite les morts. 
Ailleurs c'est un Babylonien qui rassemble, a I'aide de 
quelques mots sacres, tons les serpents d'un pays, et qui les 

Q 2 



228 NOTES. 

extermine de son souffle. Des malheureiix sont fustiges 
toutes les nuits par de mauvais genies. Des statues marcheut, 
parlent et mangent. On ne prononce qu'avec un respect 
plein de terreur les noms des morts, en ajoutant quelque 
formule qui put leur plaire, comme le Bienheureux ou le 
Saint. Malheur a vous, si vous paraissiez incredule a tant 
de contes ou de sottes superstitions ! Vous etiez un impie, 
et il n'eut pas tenu aux imposteurs ou a ceux qu'ils trom- 
paient, que vous ne fussiez lapide. A force de ne rien 
croire, on en etait venu a ne plus croire que I'impossible et 
I'absurde. Je ne connaitrais rien de plus triste que ce 
retour des peuples a I'enfance par la decrepitude de la 
pensee, si je ne faisais reflexion que la vie germe toujours 
a cote de la mort, et que ces deplorables extravaganes, 
etaient le symptome d'un besoin profond et irresistible. 
Epicure et les sceptiques avaient fait tons leurs efforts pour 
cbasser le divin des esprits ; et ils ne paraissaient avoir que 
trop reussi. Mais le divin y rentrait avec violence et par 
toutes les voies, au risque d'y porter le trouble et la de- 
mence.' 

Note C a Page 127. 

The burning of Eome under Nero was imputed, as we 
know, by popular hatred, to the Christians, and the first per- 
secution followed in consequence. No such connection was 
imagined between the burning of the Capitol in the civil wars 
and the hated sectaries, nor can we trace the partial persecu- 
tion of the Christians by Domitian to any popular apprehen- 
sion of the anger of the gods. Nevertheless the character of 
this emperor and his superstitious belief in his own divine 
appointment as the guardian and restorer of the national 
religion, makes it probable that he was not uninfluenced by 
such a consideration. The trial of Ignatius under Trajan 
at Antioch, and the Christian martyrdoms that followed, 
agree with the date of the great earthquake by which the 
Syrian capital was partially overthrown, and it is impossible 



NOTES. 229 

to overlook the apparent connection between this event and 
the persecution which immediately ensued. The same may 
be said of the great calamities of the empire and the persecu- 
tions under M. Aurelius. These calamities were redoubled 
under Decius and Grallus, and the fury of persecution simul- 
taneously increased. Diocletian for a long time resisted 
the importunities of his colleague Gralerius to renew the same 
policy with greater energy than ever ; and was at last deter- 
mined to it by the event, probably accidental, though im- 
puted to Gralerius himself by Lactantius, of a conflagration 
in his own palace. Lactant., De Mort. Persecut. c. 15. That 
the persecutions were repeatedly excited by the superstitious 
terrors of the populace is the constant assertion of the 
Christian writers. 

See the classical passage in Tertull. Apoll. c. 40 : — 

Existimant omnis publicse cladis, omnis popularis incom- 
modi Christianos esse causam. Si Tiberis ascendit in moenia, 
si Nilus non ascendit in arva, si caelum stetit, si terra movit, 
si fames, si lues, statim — Christianos ad leonem ! 

Comp. Cyprian, JEpist Ixxv., where he attributes an out- 
burst of persecution in some parts of Asia Minor to the 
occurrence of destructive earthquakes : ut per Cappadociam 
et per Pontum qusedam etiam civitates in profundum receptse 
dirupti soli hiatu devorarentur, ut ex hoc persecutio quoque 
gravis adversus nos Christiani nominis fieret. See also Ori- 
gen, Coimn. in Matthceum, iii. p. 859, ed. Delarue. 

Cyprian, Ad Demetr. c. 3. Dixisti per nos fieri, et quod 
nobis debeant imputari omnia ista quibus nunc mundus 
quatitur et urgetur, quod dii vestri a nobis non colantur. The 
motive and principle of these wild and sanguinary impulses 
lie deep in human nature, and deserve attentive consideration. 

The sense of a personal relation to the Deity is assuredly 
an earlier development of the religious instinct than that of 
a public and national relation to Him. The instinct which 
prompts man to offer sacrifice to Grod was first directed to 
the attainment of favour for himself, or pardon and pro- 
tection; and at a later period extended to the attempt to 



230 NOTES. 

conciliate Grod to his country, and to its public interests. 
Human sacrifices may be traced back to the earlier period ; 
in the earliest accounts we have of them, they seem 
to have been offerings of individual worshippers, as when 
the parent offers his child, the master his slave, and 
the choicest victims are immolated at the tomb of the 
departed chieftain. They mark in such cases the extreme 
point to which the hopes, the terrors, or the remorse of 
the individual might impel him. We may conjecture that 
these terrible offerings were first introduced into both Grreek 
and Eoman usage with such a view to private and personal 
interests. But both in Grreece and Eome the political in- 
stinct became early predominant, and gradually overrode all 
merely personal views of religion. Human sacrifices were 
consecrated in both the great nations of classical antiquity 
to the special object of procuring divine protection for the 
State. With this object they were publicly sanctioned and 
regularly practised in early times both in Grreece and Eome. 
But the national instinct of religion, and national devo- 
tion to religious usage, were never so strong as the personal. 
Men could not feel the same intense, absorbing interest in 
the safety of the State, as in their own personal safety. 
They could not continue so ruthlessly to trample upon the 
natural feelings of humanity for the one object, as they might 
have done for the other. Hence it would appear that, when 
the idea of the need of human sacrifices was thus far dis- 
sociated from the personal interests of the offerer, the 
advance of civilizatioD and cultivated feelings led the 
Greeks, and especially the lonians and Athenians, the most 
cultivated among them, to discountenance, to modify, and 
finally to reject them generally as an instrument of public 
utility. The influence of G-recian habits and teaching ope- 
rated strongly upon the Eomans, and gradually tempered 
the gloomier instincts of that people also. Possibly the na- 
tional successes and the established security of the State 
against the most urgent calamities of war and conquest, 
aided powerfully in producing this change of sentiment. 



NOTES. 231 

From the year B.C. 95, the era of her most triumphant pros- 
perity, the laws of Eome expressly forbade human sacrifice. 
Her writers generally speak of it with horror. They felt no 
need of it, and they were free to regard it with the detes- 
tation which liuman nature properly entertains for it. They 
declare that no such usage exists at Eome ; that it is ab- 
horrent from Eoman manners and morality ; the chiefs of 
the Empire take measures to check it in their remoter and 
less civilized provinces. So strong is the protest of Eoman 
civilization against it, that, on a superficial view of the facts, 
it has been often asserted that human sacrifice was actually 
abolished for centuries .under the sway of the Eoman Emperors. 

Such, however, was far from the case. Even in the State- 
ritual of Eome some traces of the practice still continued to 
linger. Even on public occasions, and for national objects, 
human sacrifices were from time to time offered. In cases 
of political urgency, the * Gaul and the Grreek ' were still 
buried solemnly in the forum. 

Still worse, the practice creeps back again for private and 
personal objects, and is associated with magical ceremonies. 
^Mlen the State is merged in the ruler, it is difficult to 
distingTiish the personal from the public interest ; but it was 
probably more for their own sakes than for the sake of the 
commonwealth, that irregular sacrifices of this kind were 
perpetrated by Julius C^sar, by Augustus, by Tiberius, 
and Nero, and after them still more frequently and without 
disguise by most of the succeeding emperors. Trajan him- 
self sacrificed a beautiful woman after the earthquake at 
Antioch, as a propitiation, we may suppose, for the safety of 
that city. The self-devotion of Antinous for Hadrian is an 
instance of quasi-sacrifice. The significance of the rite, as 
the voluntary offering of the best and dearest, seems to 
come back upon the conscience of mankind as a revived re- 
velation of man's relation to Grod. The rhetorician Aristides 
believes himself to be saved from imminent peril of death by 
the self-immolation of his brother Hermias, and in a fresh 
access of his disease persuades his sister Philumene to devote 



232 KOTES. 

herself for him also. The influence of the earlier and 
healthier teaching of the Grreek philosophers and philan- 
thropists had now become weaker ; at the same time the 
barbarous ideas of Asia and Africa were making themselves 
more powerfully felt* The calamities of the State seemed 
to demand greater and more striking efforts to appease the 
manifest wrath of Heaven. Along with the increase of 
other wild and gloomy superstitions, human sacrifices be- 
came more and more common, and ceased to be regarded 
with the horror they naturally inspire. 

Undoubtedly various feelings entered into the demand for 
the persecution of the Christians. The magistrate regarded 
them as transgressors of a principle in public law, as evil- 
doers, as fosterers of treason and sedition ; and was disposed 
to punish them accordingly. But the people generally, and 
sometimes the rulers themselves, yielded to a superstitious 
impulse in ascribing to their rejection of sacrifice and of 
idol-worship every public calamity, which testified, as they 
supposed, to the wrath of the offended deities* The exe- 
cution of the Christians was thus popularly regarded as a 
means of propitiation. This idea was sanctioned and fostered 
apparently by the most usual manner of these executions ; 
for the shows of the amphitheatre had sprung out of the 
primitive custom of sacrificing human victims at the altar 
of a god or the tomb of a deceased hero. Even to the time 
of Constantino, it is said, a vestige of this idea was preserved 
in the annual immolation of a gladiator on the Alban mount 
to Jupiter Latiaris. 

For a succinct but full discussion of the subject of human 
sacrifice, with a copious citation of authorities, I would wil- 
lingly refer the reader to a tract lately printed, but not yet 
published, by Sir John Acton. The writer extends his his- 
torical review to modern times, and connects with it the 
notorious persecution of reputed witchcraft. The other equal 
and parallel disgrace of Christianity, the Eomish Inquisition, 
he regards too leniently as a merely political tribunal. I 
believe that in both cases the popular feeling which supported 



NOTES 233 

and impelled the action of the magistrate was the same : but 
this too was a mixed feeling. First, as in the case of the 
Imperial persecutions, there was the superstitious anxiety 
to propitiate the wrath of an offended deity, the same 
anxiety that has lain at the bottom of human sacrifice at 
all times ; but, secondly, there was the notion, peculiar, so 
far as appears, to Christianity, and which may serve in 
a very slight degree to relieve the horror of these Chris- 
tian persecutions, that the sacrifice is required for the 
sufferer's own sake, or if too late to save his own soul, 
may at least secure the survivors from the contagion of 
his fatal impiety. 

Note D D, Page 132, 

Neander, Church History^ i. p. 43 (Engl, transl.) : — 
* On every side was evinced the need of a revelation from 
heaven, such as would give inquiring minds that assurance of 
peace which they were unable to find in the jarring systems 
of the old philosophy, and in the artificial life of the re- 
awakened old religion. That zealous champion of the latter, 
Porphyry, alludes himself to the deep-felt necessity ; which he 
proposed to supph^, leaning on the authority of divine re- 
sponses, by his " Collection of Ancient Oracles." On this point 
he says : " The utility of such a collection will best be under- 
stood by those who have felt the painful craving after truth, 
and have sometimes wished it mio-ht be their lot to witness 
some appearance of the gods, so as to be relieved from their 
doubts by information not to be disputed." ' (See Euseb., 
Prcep. Evang. iv. 7.) 

The life of such a person, from his youth up harassed 
with doubts, unsettled by the strife of opposite opinions, 
ardently longing after the truth, and conducted at length, 
through this protracted period of dissatisfied craving, to 
Christianity, is delineated by the author of a sort of romance 
(partly philosophical and in part religious), who belonged to 
the second or the third century. This work is called The 



234 NOTES. 

Clementines, and, though fiction, is clearly a fiction drawn 
from real life ; and we may safely avail ourselves of it, as 
presenting a true and characteristic sketch, which might 
doubtless apply to many an inquiring spirit belonging to 
those times. It commences thus : — 

Ego, Clemens, in urbe Eoma natus, ex prima setate pudi- 
citise studium gessi ; dum me animi intentio velut vinculis 
quibusdam solicitudinis et moeroris innexum teneret. Inerat 
mihi cogitatio incertum sane unde initium sumpserit, crebro 
enim ad memoriam meam conditionem mortalitatis adducens, 
simulque discutiens : utrumne sit mihi aliqua vita post 
mortem, an nihil omnino sim futurus ; si non fuerim ant€- 
quam nascerer ; vel si nulla prorsus vitse hujus erit post 
obitum recordatio ; et ita immensitas temporis cuncta 
oblivioni et silentio dabit, &c. 

The work, which runs to as many as ten books, and 
expatiates in a number of worthless stories about St. Peter 
at Eome, and Simon Magus, and others, is printed in 
Coteler's Patres Apostolici, i. 493, under the title of ' Ee- 
cognitionum S. Clementis libri x.' It was attributed in 
early times to St. Clement, the disciple of Paul and author 
of the Epistles to the Corinthians. The work is fully 
analysed by Neander in the second volume of his His- 
tory, p. 25 foil. Similarly, in the conversation between 
Justin Martyr and his unknown interlocutor, the heathen 
philosopher is forced to admit the vanity of his masters' 
reasonings on the nature of Grod and the soul, and to seek 
speculative truth in the revelations made through the 
Hebrew prophets : sysvovro tlvss irpo iroWov 'Xpovou ttclvtwv 
70VTC0V Twv vofJLi^ojJbsvoiv (piXoaocpcov TrdkatoTspoi, fjuaKapLOi kul 
hiKatoi KoX 6so(pL\sL9i Osicp TTvevfJuaTL XaXrjcravTSS koI to. fxsX- 
Xovra ds(T7rL(javT£9, a By vvv ^LVsraL' iTpo(j)r]Tas hs avrovs 

KoXoVCnV. OvTOt fXOVOL TO d\7}6s9 KOI slSoV KoX S^sllTOV 

avOpcoTTOLs, fiiJT £v\apr]6svrs9, /htjts Svaa)7r'pdsvrs9 TLvd, /nrj 
7]TT7]/jbsvoL B6^T)9y oXXa fiova ravra al7r6uTS9 a rjicovaav koi a 
sldov d,yL(p 'ir\'r}p(i)6svTS9 TrvsvjJiaTU — Justin M., Dial, cam 
TrypL c 7. 



XOTES. 235 

The ' Confessions ' of St. Augustine, in which he gives a full 
account of the intellectual and moral perplexities which led 
him to renounce irreligion and heresy, and embrace a saving- 
faith, is of a later date, and belongs properly to the post- 
Nicene period. See the seventh book particularly. 

His first and greatest difficulty was the Origin of Evil 
(Confess, vii. 3): — Sed rursus dicebam, Quis fecit me? 
nonne Deus mens, non tantum bonus, sed ipsum bonum ? 
Unde igitur mihi male velle et bene nolle, ut esset cur juste 
poenas luerem ? Quis in me hoc posuit, et insevit mihi plan- 
tariiuu amaritudinis, cum totus fierem a dulcissimo Deo meo ? 
Si Diabolus auctor, unde ipse Diabolus? . . . (c. 5.) Et 
quaerebam, unde malum : et male quaerebam : et in ipsa in- 
quisitione mea non videbam malum. . . . (c. 6.) Jam etiam 
mathematicorum fallaces divinationes et impia deKramenta 
rejeceram. . . (c. 7.) Jam itaque me, adjutor mens, illis vinculis 
solveras, et quaerebam unde malum, et non erat exitus. , . . 
(c. 13.) Et prime volens ostendere mihi, quam resistas 
superbis, humilibus autem des gratiam, et quanta misericordia 
tua demonstrata sit hominibus via humilitatis, quod Verhuni 
tuiun caro factum est, et habitavit inter homines, pro- 
curasti mihi per quendam hominem immanissimo typho 
turgidum, quosdam Platonicorum libros , . . et ibi legi, non 
quidem his verbis, sed hoc idem omnino multis et multiplici- 
bus suaderi rationibus ; quod in principio erat Verbum, et 
Verbum erat apud Deum, et Deus erat Verbum : hoc erat 
in principio apud Deum ; omnia per eum facta sunt. . . . 
(c. 14.) Item ibi legi quia Deus Verbum, non ex carne, non ex 
sanguine, non ex voluntate viri, neque ex voluntate carnis, 
sed ex Deo natus est. Sed quia Verbum caro factum est, et 
habitavit in nobis, non ibi legi. . . . Quod exin ante omnia 
tempera, et supra omnia tempera incommutabiliter manet 
unigenitus Filius tuus coseternus tibi, et quia de plenitudine 
ejus accipiunt anima? ut beatse sunt, et quia participatione 
manentis in se sapientiae renovantur ut sapient es sint : est ibi. 
Quod autem secundum tempus pro impiis mortuus est ; et 
Filio unico tuo non pepercisti, sed pro nobis omnibus tracli- 



236 IS'OTES. 

disti eum : non est ibi. Abscondisti enim hsec a sapientibus, 
et revel asti ea parvulis. . . . (c. 10.) Etinde admonitus redire 
ad memetipsum, intravi in intima mea duce te: et potui 
quoniam factus es adjutor meus : seqq. 

Of the process of thought by which such inquirers were 
led to Christianity, Neander says (Hist, of the Church, iii. 
135) : — ' Many educated Pagans were conducted to the Faith, 
not at once, by means of some sudden excitement, but after 
they had been led by particular providences, by the great 
multitude of Christians around them, to entertain doubts of 
the Pagan religion they had received from their ancestors, 
and to enter upon a serious examination of the several 
systems of religion within their reach. They read the Holy 
Scriptures and the writings of the Christian Fathers ; they 
proposed their doubts and their difficulties to Christian friends, 
and finally made up their minds to go to the bishop. Many 
came, by slow degrees, through many intervening steps, to 
Christianity ; and the Neo -Platonic religious idealism formed 
one stage in particular by which they were brought nearer to 
Christian ideas, as is seen in the examples of a Synesius and 
an Augustine. This system made them familiar with the 
doctrine of a Triad. Although this doctrine, in its specula- 
tive tendency, was altogether different from the Christian 
doctrine, which is in its essence practical throughout; yet 
they were thereby made attentive to Christian ideas. They 
were conducted still nearer to practical Christianity by the 
doctrine that man needed to be redeemed and purified from 
the might of the vXrj, which not only fettered and clogged, 
but corrupted that element of his soul which stands related 
to Grod. It is true, they believed only in a general redeem- 
ing power of Grod, which was imparted to individuals in pro- 
portion to their worth ; or the communication of which was 
connected with various religious institutions under different 
forms. . . . Yet when those to whom Christianity appeared 
at first as one particular revelation of the divine, coordi- 
nate to other forms of manifestation, and not as the abso- 
lute religion of humanity, were induced to read the Holy 



NOTES. 237 

Scriptures, and so attend divine worship in Christian 
chinches. . . . they might by their own study of the 
Scriptures, and through numberless impressions derived 
from the Church life, be let more deeply into the Christian 
truth, until at last they found the redeeming Grod only in 
Christ. . . . Thus Synesius, for example . . . thus it hap- 
pened to Augustine. . . .' 



Note E E, Page 136. 

Plin., Hist, Nat., ii. 1 : — Mundum et hoc quod nomine 
alio coelum appellare libuit, cujus circumflexu teguntur omnia, 
numen credi par est, seternum, immensum, neque genitum 
neque interiturum unquam. The philosopher seems to 
identify the universe of things with the heavens, or vault of 
aether, embracing all things, by which the globe is sur- 
rounded. Cicero recites well-kno-vvTi passages to the same 
effect from Ennius and Euripides : Aspice hoc sublime 
candens quem invocant omnes Jovem. . . . Vides sublime 
fusum immoderatum sethera, qui terram tenero circumjectu 
amplectitur. Hunc summam habeto Divum, hunc perhibeto 
Jovem. The Stoic Chrysippus had advanced the same ex- 
position of the Grodhead : Chrysippus disputavit sethera esse 
eum quem homines appellant Jovem. Cicero, De Nat. Deor,, 
ii. 2, 25. Lucan, following an amj^ler explanation of the 
same school, afl&rmed Jupiter to be not only: quodcnnque 
vides, the whole material universe, but ; quocunque moveris, 
the whole of our moral nature. But such authorities as these 
had condescended to use at least the popular name of the 
Supreme Deity, and to speak of Him as a personal existence. 
Pliny disdains this economy. After discussing various theo- 
logical views, he concludes himself: Deus est mortali juvare 
mortalem, et hsec ad aeternam gloriam via, i. e. Grod is the 
mere abstract principle of virtue ; and this leads him round 
to the starting-point of the Pagan mythologies, the pretended 
deification of the wise and good among mortals : Hac proceres 



238 NOTES. 

iere Eomani; hac nunc coelesti passu cum liberis suis vadit 
maximus omnis sevi rector Vespasianus Augustus fessis rebus 
subveniens. Hie est vetustissimus referendi gratiam bene me- 
rentibus mos, ut tales numinibus ascribant. Quippe et om- 
nium aliorum nomina Deorum ... ex hominum nata sunt 
meritis. And hence by an easy lapse to the denial of a Pro- 
vidence : Irridendum vero agere curam rerum humanarum 
illud quicquid est summum. Such is the vicious circle 
described by Pantheism and Atheism. 



Note F F, Page 139. 

With regard to the means of obtaining peace and favour 
with God, the main object of our religious affections, the 
notion of the ancients fluctuated, much like our own, be- 
tween the principles of Sanctification and Justification, of 
gaining the reward by personal acts or merits, or by free 
acceptance in consequence of some act or merit of another. 
Under the first head are comprised ceremonial purifications, 
as well as works of justice or charity ; all godly living as well 
as righteous observance; acts of personal discipline and self- 
denial ; means of removing inward or outward hindrances to 
acceptance with the Deity. Thus man is supposed to work 
out his own salvation, whatever aid may be given him from 
above, whether by the opus operatum of ritual lustra- 
tions, or by the infusion of divine grace to prevent and 
follow him in all his thoughts and actions. Under the 
second principle is comprised the notion of satisfaction to 
God, of reconciliation with Him, of atonement effected by a 
prescribed religious service, such as sacrifice ; whether the 
offering by the worshipper of an object precious to himself, or 
the self-devotion of an object precious to God, for the love it 
bears to the worshipper. 

In the early ages of Christianity we find both these ideas 
of religion, both these ruling principles of divine worship, 
recognised equally among the heathens. Lustration and 
Expiation, Purification and Propitiation, the Mysteries and 



NOTES. 239 

the Sacrifices, were in perhaps equal vogue and estimation 
among them. By the one they hoped to wash away the 
stains of guilt, to elevate the moral character, to cast off the 
slough of human corruption, to purge the mental vision and 
obtain a higher and truer conception of the Divine, or 
nearer communion with it ; to abjure our frail humanity and 
assume a portion at least of divine illumination, purity, 
and sanctity ; to raise man to Grod. Such was the object 
of the Mysteries, or Initiation into the secrets of moral 
nature ; such the promises held forth by the Hierophants 
of various religious systems, especially of those derived from 
or connected with the East, and assured through the in- 
strumentality of occult ceremonial observances, and most 
potently by the use of magical arts and appliances. 

But such were the aspirations, and such the resources 
generally of the more refined and intelligent worshippers ; 
this notion of lustration as the one thing needful was, in a 
great measure, a reaction from the grosser superstitions of 
the vulgar ; from the popular conception that Grod's favour 
was to be attained directly, and without any personal effort, 
by the means of offerings and sacrifice. To pour forth before 
the throne of grace gifts — precious gifts, gifts ever ascending 
in value, gifts of life, of the life of animals, and lastly of 
man himself, of our friends, of our offspring, of ourselves — 
such was the most popular, the most ancient, the most wide- 
spread notion of religious service. The idea seems to have 
commonly prevailed, that such sacrifice was accepted instead 
of the suffering due from the worshipper himself for his sins, 
or the disfavour, however caused, in which he imagined him- 
self to stand with Grod. Hence, the more precious the victim 
to Him, the more hope that the vicarious substitute would be 
accepted. Of the extent to which human sacrifices were 
offered in the heathen world I have spoken in a previous 
note, and of the ineradicable feeling which prompted them, 
and which reappeared again and again under the pressure of 
terror and disaster. But even in the heathen mind this idea 
of the value of sacrifice assumed here and there another and 



240 NOTES 

a higher form. Indications are not wanting in the Pagan 
mythology of the conception of a spontaneous offering made 
to G-od for man by a being himself partaking of the divine 
nature, and having, from such participation, a certain claim 
upon the favour and consideration of the Deity. The highest 
and holiest idea of sacrifice, as the offering by Grod Himself 
of something precious to Himself for the sake of man, and 
in order to reconcile man to Himself, is not wholly alien even 
from the mind of the heathens. 

The Grreeks and Romans might learn, on inquiry, that 
Christianity offered a view of religion foanded, like their own, 
on the ideas both of purification and of propitiation. They 
might learn that Baptism was regarded by the Church as an 
initiatory rite, leading to a new life of purity and godliness, 
the great hindrances to which, in natural and acquired cor- 
ruption, might be removed by the grace of the Holy Spirit 
infused into the hearts of the believers, and manifesting 
itself in their conversion to God, and their amendment of 
life and conversation. 

Again, they might learn that the death of Christ upon the 
cross was declared to be a sacrifice, consummated once for all, 
the crowning sacrifice of which all earlier offerings were but 
types, the offering, not of man's dearest as a ransom for him- 
self from punishment due to his own sins, but the offering of 
G-od's dearest for the sake of man, as the means discovered 
by the Most High to satisfy His justice, and at the same time 
to illustrate His love. 

They might learn, further, that the Christian mind still 
fluctuated, like their own, between these two conceptions ; that 
sometimes, and in some minds, the one, in some the other, 
gained the predominance ; that, as in after times, so even 
then, there were some teachers who put forward the one 
view as the main essence of religion, some the other ; that in 
some schools it is the life of Christ, with the lessons and 
example of godly practice which it has taught us ; in others, 
the death of Christ, the cross of Christ, the atonement of 
Christ, that is the one great revelation of the Gospel. There 



NOTES 241 

is still, as there everhas been in Christianity, as there ever 
has been in Heathenism, Purification on one side and Propi- 
tiation on the other ; Sanctification in one scale and Justifica- 
tion in the other. 

Thus they might read in Justin Martyr that the work of 
Christ is victory over the power of evil spirits prevailing in 
us : diro yap twv haiixovLwv, a sariv aWorpia ttJs- svcrs/SsLas 
rod 0SOV, oh iraXai TrpoaSKVvov/JbSVf tov Oeov asi hia ^Irjaov 
l^ptarov avvTr}pr]6rivaL irapaicaXoviJiSV, Xva [xstcl to sinaTps-^ai 

ITpOS OSOV d/JLCOflOi U)flSV' ^OT]6oV yap SKsIvOV Kal XVTpCOTTJV 

KaXovfjLSv. By Justin, Irenseus, Tertullian, Clement, Origen, 
and others, it is very commonly referred to the change He 
effects in men's lives on earth, and the sanctifying influence 
of His teaching and example. Thus Irenaeus, Adv. Hcer, 
iii. 18 : Filius hominis factus est, ut assuesceret hominem 
percipere Deum, et assuesceret Deum habitare in homine. 
In ii. 22 : Omnes venit salvare .... infantes et parvulos 
et pueros et juvenes et senior es : ideo per omnem venit 
setatem, et infantibus infans factus, sanctificans infantes, &c. 
Clemens Alex., Cohort ad Gent, p. 6 : Tavrrj tol rj/nsLs ol 
Trjs avofiias viol ttots, Bia ttjv (^CkavOpayrriav tov \6yov vvv 
vlo\ ysyovafjbsv tov dsov. Pcedag. i. 2, p. 100 : sartv ovv 6 
Trathayoyyos rj/uuchv Xoyos Blo, Trapacvscrscov OspairsvTLKos tcov 
irapa cj)U(riV tt/s- "^vy^qs 'jraOcov . . . Xoyos 8s 6 irarpiKos 
fxovos sarlv apOpooTTtvcov larpos appcoo-Trj/jLciTcov iraicavLos Kal 
£7T(phos ayios voaovcrrj9 ylrv^rjs. Origen sees in the union 
of the divine and human in Christ's nature the commence- 
ment of a connection between man and Grod {Gont. Gels, 
iii. 28) : otl air ekslvov rjp^aro 6sla Kal dvOpcoTrivrj avvv^aC' 
vzaOai cf)voris' lv rj dvOpcoTTCvr) Trj irpos to OeloTspov Koivwvia 
yevTjTai 6 da ovk iv jjuovoj to3 'IrjaroVf dkXa Kal Tracrt Toh fisra 
TOV TTLaTSvsLV dvaXa/JL^dvovaL /3toi^, bv 6 ^Irjcrovs sBlBa^sv. The 
same writer compares the death of Christ with that of 
Socrates, as a means of confirming the courage of his dis- 
ciples. See Gontr. Gels. ii. 14, 40. 

Again, Lactantius refers the work of Christ expressly to 
the effect of His baptism {Divin. Instit iv. 15): Tinctus est 



242 NOTES, 

a Johanne in Jordano fluvio, ut lavacro spiritali peccata non 
sua, quae utique non habebat, sed carnis quam gerebat, 
aboleret. 

These views, however, did not necessarily exclude the 
other notion of the efficacy of Christ's death for man's 
justification. The heathens might trace in patristic teaching 
many distinct assertions of the remission of sins through the 
merit of our Lord's sacrifice. Comp. Barnabas, c. 5 : Propter 
hoc Dominus sustinuit tradere corpus suum in exterminium, 
ut remissione peccatorum sanctificemur, quod est, sparsione 
sanguinis illius. Clemens Eom. ad Corinth, i. c. 7 : drsvl- 
aQ)fjLSv sis TO alfia tov ^pLarov Kol iBoofisv co? tI/jhov to) 9s^ 
{alixa) avToVf on kol Sta rrjv rj/jLSrspav croaTrjplav s/c^v6sv 
irdvTL Ta> fcoo-fjLO) fjbsravolas X^P^^ vttiJvsjksv. Tertullian, Adv. 
Judceos, c. 13 : Christum oportebat pro omnibus gentibus 
fieri sacrificium, qui tanquam ovis ad victimam ductus est. 
Origen, In Levit. Horn. 3 : Ipse etiam qui in similitudinem 
hominum factus est, et habitu repertus ut homo, sine dubio pro 
peccato quod ex nobis susceperat, quia peccata nostra portavit, 
vitulum immaculatum, hoc est, carnem incontaminatam, ob- 
tulit hostiam Deo. Again, In NuTYier. Rom. 4 : Si non fuisset 
peccatum, non necesse fuerat fi]ium Dei agnum fieri, nee opus 
fuerat eum in carne positum jugulari . . . peccati autem 
necessitas propitiationem requirit, et propitiatio non fit nisi 
per hostiam. In Matth. c. 16, tract. 11 : Homo quidem non 
potest dare aliquam commutationem pro anima sua, Deus 
autem pro animabus omnium dedit commutationem pretiosum 
sanguinem filii sui. Cyprian, Ad Demetr. c. 22 : Hanc gra- 
tiam Deus impertit .... redimendo credentem pretio 
sanguinis sui, reconciliando hominem Deo patri. Lactantius 
in the verses ascribed to him, De Beneficiis Christi : — 

Quisquis ades, mediique subis in limina templi, 
Siste parum, insontemque tuo pro crimine passum 
Eespice me. 

These are a few only of the passages of the Fathers on this 
subject, collected by Grrotius, De Satisfadione Christi, and 



NOTES. 243 

later writers. An ample catena, embracing almost every 
known name among the Christian writers of the first three 
centuries, is given by Professor Blunt, Lectures on the Use of 
the Early Fathers, p. 5 18 foil. I do not, however, discover in 
them any expressions opposed to the distinction thus stated 
by Hagenbach {History of Doctrines^ i. p. 172, Engl, trans.) 
in discussing the opinions of the primitive Church : — ' The 
tendency of Christ's appearance on earth, as such, was to 
redeem men from sin, and to reconcile them to God, inasmuch 
as it destroyed the power of the devil, and restored the 
harmony of human nature. But, in accordance with the 
doctrines preached by the apostles, the sufferings and death 
of Christ were from the commencement thought to be of 
principal importance in the work of Eedemption. The 
Fathers of the primitive Church regarded His death as a 
sacrifice and a ransom, and therefore ascribed to His blood 
the power of cleansing from sin and guilt, and attached a 
high importance, sometimes even a supernatural efficacy, to 
the sign of the Cross. . . . Yet that theory of satisfac- 
tion had not yet been formed which represents Christ as 
satisfying the justice of Grod by suffering in the room of 
the sinner the punishment due to him.' Nevertheless the 
writer admits, what appears plainly enough, that ^ the 
design of the death of Christ was to reconcile man to Grod 
was an opinion held by more than one of the Fathers.' 

On the whole, we must allow that among the Christians, as 
among the Heathens of the primitive age, there was much 
fluctuation of opinion respecting the foundation of religious 
feeling ; that some were inclined, sometimes at least, to lean 
more to the purifying and elevating effect of Christ's mission, 
some to the propitiatory character of His sufferings. Some 
looked chiefly to His life, others to His death ; some to what 
He did for men, others to what He suflered for men ; some to 
His sanctifying influence, others to His justifying merits. 

It may be conceded, perhaps, that the former, in accord- 
ance with the prevalent religious sentiment of the time, 
and in the absence of any ruled decision of the Church on the 

a 2 



244 NOTES. 

subject, was the more common inclination of the two. The 
notion of purification and exaltation of the human soul by 
virtue required or imparted, by the overthrow or extinction 
of evil powers and dispositions, was fondly entertained by 
the purest of the heathen philosophical systems; such was 
the aim of the most popular superstitious observances of the 
time. It is possible that the Christians themselves may 
have been so far affected by the habits of thought around 
them, as to look more to this side of Christian doctrine than 
to the other. Of the Nicene creed, we may observe that 
while proclaiming the saving efficacy of our Lord's whole 
career, * Who for us men and for our salvation came down 
from heaven, . . was incarnate, . . and was made man, and 
was crucified also for us. . . He suffered and was buried, 
. . and rose again,' it places the death of Christ on the same 
line with every other leading incident in it, and does not 
exalt it, as later systems of theology would generally do, to 
the grand and cardinal place above them alL If it speaks 
of the sufferings of Christ, it says nothing of His Satisfaction 
or Atonement ; the Kemission of Sins it ascribes rather to 
His Baptism than to His Crucifixion. 

Note G G, Page 149. 

S. Augustin, De Civ. Dei, xxii. 30 : Vera ibi gloria erit, 
ubi laudantis nee errore quisquam, nee adulatione laudabitur : 
verus honor qui nulli negabitur digno, nulli deferetur indigno : 
sed nee ad eum ambiet ullus indignus, ubi nullus permittetur 
esse nisi dignus. Vera pax ibi est, ubi nihil adversi, nee a 
se ipso, nee ab alio quisquam patietur. Prgemium virtutis 
erit ipse qui virtutem dedit ; eique se ipsum, quo melius et 
majus nihil possit esse, promisit. Quid est enim aliud quod 
per Prophetam dixit, Ero illorwin Deus, et ipsi erunt wiihi 
plebs ; nisi, Ego ero unde satientur. Ego ero qusecimque ab 
hominibus honeste desiderantur, et vita, et salus, et victus, 
et copia, et gloria, et honor, et pax, et omnia bona? Sic 
enim et illud recte intelligitur, quod ait Apostolus, Ut sit 



NOTES 245 

Beus omnia in omnibus. Ipse finis erit desideriorum nos- 
trorum, qui sine fine videbitur, sine fastidio amabitur, sine 
fatigatione laudabitur. Hoc munus, hie afFectus, bio actus 
profecto erit omnibus, sicut ipsa vita seterna, communis. 



Note II, Page 157. 

We may assume that the Christian apologists took care to 
present to their heathen readers the arguments which they 
knew would have the greatest force with them. That, from 
the superior morality of the disciples, is eloquently set forth 
by Justin Martp-, Apol. i. c. 14: . . . ov Tporrov koI rj/uLSL9 
jjLSTCL TO Tw X070!) 7r£iG-6i)vai, sfcsiicov fjLsv aTTsaTrjjjbsv, 6 em hs 
fjLOVcp Tft) a<ysvvriT(p hia rov vlov iiro/LLsOa * ol irdXaL /jlsv iroppsiacs 
'X^aipovTSS, vvv hs (Kocppocrujjrjv jjlovt^v dcnra^ofisvoL' ol Bs koI 
/jLajL/cah TS')(vaLS ')(pco/ji£vot,, dya6a) kol d'ysvvriTcp 6cS kavrovs 

dvarsOsLKSrSS' ')(p7]/xdTC0V 8s kol KTTJfJ^dTCOV ol TTOpOVS 'iravT09 

pLoXKov arspjovTS?, vvv /cal a s^o/jLSv sis kolvov (f}spovTS9 /cal 
irdvTL BsofjLSPO) KOtvcoi'ovvTSS ' ol iXLadXh/rjXoL hs koX dX\,7]Xocf)6voi 
KOL irpos Tovs ov^ ofjLocpvXovs Bid rd sOrj kol scnlas Koivds pLT) 

TTOLOV/ULSVOl, VVV pLSTa Tr]V STTLCpdvSiaV TOV ^pLarOV OfloBiaLTOL 
ytVOpLSVOL, Kol VlTSp Toi)V £')(6p(t)V SV^OfJiSVOL, KOL TOVS dBUcOS 

/jUtaovvTas ttslOsiv irsipcopLSvoi, ottcos ol KUTa ids tov X^picTov 
KoXds vTToOrjixoavvas /StcoaavTSS svsXiriSss mctl avv rjjMv tcov 
avTCJv Trapd tov TrdvTcov hsairo^ovTos Osov tv^^slv. Compare 
Origen, Contr, Gelsum, i. 67 : splttolslSs SavixaaLavirpaoTr^Ta 
KOL KaTacrToXrjv tov tjOovs, kol ^iKavOpcoiriav koX y^p7}aT6Tr]Ta 
KOL 'qpLSpoTrjTa iv TOLS /IT] Bid ra (Bio^TLKd 7] TLvas ')(p£ia$ dvOpw- 
TTLKas vwofcpivafisvoLS, dWd TrapaBs^apLsvois fyvrjaccos tov irspl 
6sov KoX y^piaTOV KoX Trjs iao/jLSV7]s Kplasois Xoyov. 

At a later period, and under less favourable circumstances, 
Lactantius could advance similar pretensions, though his 
rhetorical style commands less of our confidence {Instit. Div, 
iii. 26) : Dei autem prsecepta, quia et simplicia et vera sunt, 
quantum valeant in animis hominum quotidiana exempla 
demonstrant. Da mihi virum qui sit iracundus, maledicus, 



246 NOTES. 

effrsenatus ; paucissimis Dei verbis tarn placidum quam ovem 
reddam. Da cupidum, avariim, tenacem: jam tibi eum 
liberalem dabo, et pecuniam suam plenis manibus largi- 
entem. Da timidum doloris ac mortis : jam cruces, et ignes, 
et Phalaridis taurum contemnet. Da libidinosum, adulterum, 
ganeonem : jam sobrium, castum, continentem videbis. Da 
criidelem et sanguinis appetentem : jam in veram clementiam 
furor ille mutabitur . . . gratis ista fiunt, facile, cito ; modo 
pateant aures, et pectus sapientiam sitiat . . . Pauca vero 
Dei prsecepta sic totum bominem immutant, et exposito 
vetere, novum reddunt, ut non cognoscas eundem esse. 

On the conversion of Pagans at the sight of the Christian 
martyrdoms, see particularly Justin Martyr, ApoL ii. c. 12 : 
Kol jap avTos iyo), tol9 TlXdrcovos x^tpav hthdjiiaaii Bta/SaX- 
XoiUbSVOV9 CLKOVCOV ^pKTTLavovs, opcov Bs d<j>6^ovs TTpOS OdvaTov 
KoX nrdvra rd dWa vojJbi^oiJLSva (j)o^spdf svsvcovv dBuvarov stvai 
iv KaKia fcal (fxXi^Bovla v7rdp')(SLV avrovs. k. t. X. 

This passage is cited by Eusebius, Hist. Ecd. iv. 8. Comp. 
Justin M., Apol. i. c. 25. Dial. c. Tryph. c. 110, 119, 131. 
To the evidence thus afforded, the Pagans could only reply by 
imputing the patience of the Christians to obstinacy or mad- 
ness. TertulL, Apol. c. 27 : Quidam dementiam existimant, 
quod cum possimus et sacrificare in prsesenti, et illsesi abire 
manente apud animum proposito, obstinationem saluti prasfe- 
ramus. c. 50 : propterea desperati et perditi existimamur. In 
the same place: Nee quicquam tamen proficit exquisitior 
quseque crudelitas vestra ; illecebra est magis vitse : plures 
efficimur, quoties metimur a vobis : semen est sanguis Chris- 
tianorum. . . Ilia ipsa obstinatio, quam exprobratis, magistra 
est. Quis enim non contemplatione ejus concutitur ad requi- 
rendum, quid intus in re sit? Quis non, ubi requisivit, 
accedit? ubi accessit, pati exhortat? 

Compare Epict., Dissert, iv. 7 : aha vtto fxavlas fisv hvvaraL 
Tis ovrco SiareOrjvaL Trpos ravra, kclI vtto Wovs cos ol TaXiXaioi,, 
VTTO Xojov hs KoX dirohsi^eoDS ovhsls hvvarai. M. Aurel., Medit. 
xi. 3 : fjLT) Kara 'yjnXrjv irapdra^tv, cos ol XpLaTtavoc, 

In the Epistle to Diognetus, one of the pieces attributed 



IS^OTES. 247 

to Justin Martyr, the heathen is invited to remark, among 
other tokens of their moral superiority, that the Christians 
do not expose their infants : fyafiovaiv, . . rsfcvoyovouaLVf aW 
ou piiTTovcn ra ysvvcofjLSva, Among the heathen, this abomi- 
nable practice, which grew probably more and more rife with 
the decline of society, was the result often of misery, but more 
commonly of indolence and selfishness. When we remember 
that the Christians, who denied themselves this miserable 
resource, were excluded by their principles from many of the 
employments and avocations of their fellow- citizens, we can 
easily imagine how superior they must have been to the mass 
of those around them in self-denial, self-confidence, and 
energy ; in all the virtues, in short, which in the long run 
secure success in life. I imagine that no cause contributed 
more to the triumph of Christianity than the moral discipline 
to which its disciples were necessarily subjected. 



Note K K, Page 165. 

The story is told by Sozomen, Hist Eccles. i. 18, and is 
repeated by most writers on Church history as a vivid 
illustration of the temper of the times. Some may pay it 
the tribute of a passing smile, others make an open jest of it. 
To me it seems to have a deep and grave significance. I be- 
lieve that among the most thoughtful and logical of reasoners 
the final movement towards conversion has often been one of 
sudden inexplicable impulse, and I trace in this individual 
instance, whether actual or mythical, a striking emblem of 
the way in which the last links which bound the Eoman Em- 
pire to Paganism were mysteriously, providentially, perhaps 
I may say miraculously, snapped asunder. 






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